Functional, Communicative and Critical Health Literacy Among Patient with Diabetes Type2 Referred To The Diabetes Clinic

Diabetes is a chronic disease that can cause acute and debilitating complications such as cardiovascular disease, blindness, and kidney failure. Inadequate self-care and health literacy are major barriers to diabetes management and affect patients' participation in self-care activities. This study aims to evaluate the patient's health literacy status with type 2 diabetes in three areas of function, communication, and criticism and to determine the relationship between these factors and self-care behaviors in patients with diabetes.  A cross-sectional study was conducted on 118 diabetic patients referred to diabetes clinic 2019 through a regular random sampling approach. The level of health literacy and its subscales in patients was assessed by a Functional, Communicative, and Critical Health Literacy standard questionnaire. In order to analyze the data, descriptive statistics including mean, standard deviation, and frequency and analytical statistics such as independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance, Chi-square test, and multivariate linear regression were performed by SPSS software version 16. the mean score for total health literacy was 25.51±5.7, which is rated as average.  The results showed a significant relationship between functional health literacy and communication health literacy (r = -0.481), communicative and critical health literacy (r = 0.726), and between functional and critical health literacy (r = -0.426). Total health literacy had a statistically significant relationship with functional health literacy (r = 0.456), communication (r = 0.496), and critical health literacy (r = 0.534).  Considering that communication, critical and functional health literacy is related to total health literacy and preventive behaviors in diabetic patients, treatment seems necessary.