Evaluation of Health Literacy Adults in Jahrom

Health literacy refers to one’s capability of acquisition, interpretation and comprehension of the primary health care information that is essential for a proper decision-making. Therefore, the present research aimed to look into the level of adults’ health literacy in Jahrom in 2015. The present applied research which was descriptive/analytical and cross-sectional in type was conducted on 502 adults (above 18 years of age) in Jahrom selected through a convenient sampling method. The data collection instrument was a standardized test of health literacy in adults (TOFHLA). The data entered SPSS v.19 for the required statistical analyses. Descriptive statistics, independent-sample t-test and one-way ANOVA were employed to analyze the data. The mean age of subjects was 31±10.85 years. Based on the TOFHLA questionnaire, the health literacy of 82.62% of the adult subjects was adequate while that of 17.37% was close to the cut-off point. No statistically significant correlation was observed between health literacy and sex, age and income. However, health literacy showed to be significantly correlated with education. Overall, the present findings showed an inadequate level of health literacy among the majority of subjects. Therefore, there is a need to assist those of low health literacy by developing comprehensive plans, easy and comprehensible educational media and materials so as to improve their health literacy.