Health literacy is a public health priority which refers to individual's knowledge, motivation and competence to access, understand, appraise and apply health information to prevent disease and promote health in daily life. This study aimed to adapt European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47) into Turkish and to investigate its psychometric properties. The questionnaire was translated into Turkish by using both group translation and expert opinion methods. Forward translation-back translation method was used for language validity and the final Turkish version (HLS-TR) was formed. HLS-EU-Q47 and Health Awareness Scale (HAS) were administered to 505 respondents. The scale reliability was examined using Crohnbach's alpha coefficient and the construct validity was assessed by principal axis factoring procedure. The convergent validity was obtained by Pearson correlation coefficients between HLS-TR and HAS scores and discriminant validity was examined comparing the scores of participants who were stratified according to ages, educational status, gender, general health status and social status. Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the whole scale was 0.95. Principal axis factoring extracted nine factors which eigenvalues were >1 and explained 50.01% of total variance. Factor matrix displayed that all items gave greater load in factor 1, showing that health literacy measured with one factor. Positive and significant correlation was found between HLS-TR and HAS. Significant relations were found between HLS-TR scores and selected determinants of health. This study revealed that the HLS-TR was a valid and reliable measuring instrument with appropriate psychometric characteristics.
The handwashing habits are shaped by the determinant networks which form a complex structure by intertwining individual, socio-economic and environmental factors in different sub-groups with various weights. This result might contribute to the efforts of conceptualizing the health behaviors with ecological model.
Sağlık alanında her kademede geçerliliği olan sağlık okuryazarlığı kavramının kişilerin tam iyilik haline katkısı yadsınamaz bir gerçektir. DSÖ, 1974’lü yıllarda sağlık okuryazarlığını “Bireylerin, hayatlarını sağlıklı geçirebilmeleri için sağlığın korunması ve sağlıklı halin sürdürülmesi için bir bireyin sağlık bilgisine ulaşma, anlama ve kullanma becerilerinin hepsi” olarak tanımlamıştır (1,2). Birinci basamak sağlık hizmetlerinden üçüncü basamak ve palyatif hizmetlere kadar tüm basamaklar sağlık okuryazarlığından beslenebilmektedir. Bu sebeple sağlık okuryazarlık düzeyinin düşük veya yetersiz olması sağlık sistemini olumsuz etkileyebilmektedir. Birinci basamak sağlık
hizmetlerinin bileşenlerinden birisi de koruyucu sağlık hizmetleridir. Risk faktörleri yokken ve/veya varken, hastalıkları erken zamanda tespit etmek ve erken tedavi etmek gibi hizmetlerin hepsine koruyucu sağlık hizmetleri denir. Kanser taramaları da en önemli koruyucu sağlık hizmetlerinden biridir. Kanserlerin mortalite ve morbidite düzeylerinin yüksek olmasıyla beraber erkenden tanımlanabilmesi de mümkündür. Bu sebeple kanser tarama programları hem bireysel hem de toplumsal sağlık açısından önem arz eder. Yetersiz düzeyde sağlık okuryazarlığı koruyucu sağlık hizmetlerinde de aksamalara sebep olmaktadır. Sağlık okuryazarlık düzeyi yetersiz olan bireylerin daha az oranda kanser tarama programlarına başvurmaları hem bireysel sağlık hem de toplumsal sağlık hem de maliyet açısından sosyal sağlıkta olumsuz sonuçları beraberinde getirmektedir.
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