The relationship between quality of life and health literacy among nurses in Tabriz's largest northwestern heart center

Quality of life is a multidimensional concept that is influenced by many important factors such as physical and mental health. Health literacy is also one of the factors that has a significant impact on quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between nurses' quality of life and health literacy in the largest heart center of Northwest Iran in 2018.

The present study is an analytical, cross-sectional study that was performed on 217 nurses working in the largest heart center of Northwest in Tabriz through random sampling. Study data were collected using the 36-item Quality of Life Questionnaire (SF-36) and the Adult Functional Health Literacy Standard Questionnaire (HELIA). Data analysis was performed using ANOVA, t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, by SPSS software version 25.

The mean and standard deviation of nurses' quality of life was (59.17±7.6) and the majority of subjects 84(37.8%) had good quality of life. the mean and standard deviation of the overall health literacy was estimated to be 75.9 ± 13.3, indicating adequate health literacy among nurses. There was a significant relationship between different dimensions of quality of life with total health literacy score (P <0.001), but there was no significant relationship between understanding and quality of life’s dimensions.

Findings showed that increasing nurses' health literacy has positive effects on some aspects of their quality of life. Therefore, while communicating with nursing staff, nursing managers should pay close attention to their health and quality of life, and should try to improve their quality of life by developing educational programs and promoting health literacy.