Association between Health Literacy, Self-care Behavior, and Blood Sugar Level among Older Patients with Type 2 Diabetes in Rural Thai Communities

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a major problem worldwide. Moreover, older patients with significantly limited health literacy (HL) tend to have worse self-care behaviors and health outcomes. This study aimed to describe the associations of HL, self-care behavior, and blood sugar levels among older patients with type 2 diabetes in rural Thai communities.Methods: This cross-sectional study included 415 patients with diabetes who were purposively selected from rural Thai communities. Data were collected using questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, Spearman rho, and stepwise multiple linear regression. Results: The results revealed that most participants were women (66.50%). The respondents had moderate overall HL (2.68±0.64). On average, the respondents had fair overall self-care behavior (4.0±0.33). We discovered that HL was significantly positively correlated with self-care behavior (r=0.90) but not with blood sugar level. In addition, self-care behavior was significantly negatively correlated with blood sugar level (r=-0.50). Self-care behaviors and blood sugar levels were significant predictors of HL in patients with type 2 diabetes (total variance, 28.4%).Conclusion: The results suggested increased HL in patients with diabetes would improve self-care behavior and, consequently, decrease their blood sugar level. Our findings indicate the need to involve nurses and multidisciplinary healthcare teams when developing health promotion programs to encourage blood sugar control.

Quality of Life of Older Adults with Physical and Mobility Disabilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in Thailand

“…It was found in this study that about half of the participants wanted the state to provide them with support for their occupations and damaged equipment for the disabled. Similarly, prior studies have found that older adults' perception of the benefits of disability is important for them to access healthcare services, disease prevention materials, and health information during the COVID-19 pandemic [16,39], which might affect their health literacy [17,40] and QoL [29]. However, we conducted this study during the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have had an impact on the participants' access to health care and health insurance rights, lowering their QoL [41].…”

Yaşlılarda Sağlık Okuryazarlığı ve Yaşam Kalitesi İlişkisi

“…Tiller et al (2015) also found that health literacy was positively associated with education level, income level, and self-perceived social position. The literature also reported that health literacy demonstrated a significant relationship with age, education level, and income, and the health literacy level was found to be lower in individuals who were at an advanced age and who had low education and income level (Sabooteh et al, 2019;Suksatan et al, 2021). The higher education level of older individuals increased their health literacy scores.…”

Pathways linking health literacy to self-care in diabetic patients with physical disabilities: A moderated mediation model

“…Second, the moderated mediation model was tested with model 8 by age groups (young adults aged <40 and midlife adults aged ≥40) as moderators [ 34 ]. Education was treated as a controlled variable in the hypothetical model considering the influence of education on health literacy and self-care behavior [ 16 ]. The threshold of value of α was adjusted to less than 0.025, deviating from the conventional 0.05, aiming to mitigate the risk of Type I errors [ 35 ].…”

“…Additionally, health literacy has been theorized as one important, nonclinical factor that is associated with diabetes self-care behavior. The growing body of research has indicated that health literacy is a determinant of glycemic control [ 14 ], medication adherence [ 15 ], and diabetic control lifestyle adherence, such as blood glucose monitoring, foot care, and diet [ 16 ].…”