Investigation of health literacy and related factors among the clients of comprehensive health service centers in Jahrom city in 2022

Inadequate health literacy will lead to an increase in mortality and disease burden, as well as an increase in healthcare costs in adults. The aim of the present study was to investigate health literacy and related factors among the clients of comprehensive health service centers in Jahrom city in 2022.

The present study was an analytical cross-sectional study that was conducted on 648 people aged 30 to 65 in Jahrom city. Multi-stage sampling was used in this study. A standardized health literacy questionnaire and demographic characteristics were used to collect information. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS22 software using Chi-Square test. A significance level of p<0.05 was considered.

The average age of the participants was 10.48±44.68. Of the total participants, 19.3% had inadequate health literacy, 26.4% had limited health literacy, 36.6% had adequate health literacy, and 19.8% had excellent health literacy. Health literacy showed a statistically significant relationship with gender, age, marital status, education level and financial status (p<0.01).

Health literacy was reported to be unfavorable in more than 45% of the population aged 30 to 65 in Jahrom city. Therefore, designing interventions to increase health literacy in adults based on demographic variables can help improve the health of this group of people.