An Evaluation of Health Literacy Situations of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

To analyze factors which effect diabetes health literacy (DHL) situations of patients with type 2 diabetes and their relations with sociodemographic variables.
Data were collected in a policlinic of a public hospital between 1 and 30 December 2010 through questionnaires from patients with type 2 diabetes who were older than 18 years and accepted to be interviewed. For each correct answer related to DHL situations, the variable was given 1 point and for others, 0 point was given. Thus, a scoring was made to evaluate DHL levels.
62,2% of participants were women, 81,4% were over 44, 23,8% were illiterate, 53,3% were unemployed, 32% had a monthly income equal to or below 700 TL. It was found that 38,8% of participants had difficulties in reading and writing skills. 61,1% of participants had type 2 diabetes for five years and longer, 21,5% did not show up regularly for control, 71,7% never attended educational meetings for diabetes, 93,5% did not know their HbA1c values, 16,9% changed potions without asking their doctors, and 33,9% wrongly interpreted usage instruction sample (3×1 drug use). There was a significant difference between participants’ DHL scores and education status (p0,001). DHL averages of patients whose duration of illness was 5 to 14 years were significantly higher than those whose duration of illness was less than 4 years or more than 15 years (p=0,036). Estimated relative risk in regression model of being high in comparison to those having difficulty in at least one of reading or writing activities was 2,697 (95%GA: 1,208-6,022). The estimated relative risk of being high for DHL scores of those, whose duration of illness was 15 and more years, was equal to 5,437 (95%GA: 1,798-16,436) in comparison to patients who had been diseased for 4 or fewer years.
Factors such as education, reading and writing skills, area of settlement, and family support which have all been found to affect DHL scores should be given due attention in treatments of patients with type 2 diabetes.