Health Literacy and COVID‐19 Awareness Among Preservice Primary School Teachers and Influencing Factors in Turkey

Abstract

Background Primary school teachers play an important role in furnishing children with basic knowledge about health literacy and awareness of COVID‐19. This study was conducted to determine the levels of health literacy and COVID‐19 awareness among preservice primary school teachers and the factors associated with this. Methods The sample of this cross‐sectional and correlational study consists of 978 preservice primary school teachers studying at 4 major universities in Turkey. The participation rate was 90.14%. Data were collected with 3 questionnaires, the Descriptive Characteristics Form, the Health Literacy Scale, and the COVID‐19 Awareness Scale. Results The mean score of the Health Literacy scale was 105.16 (SD = 13.04). The mean scores of the Contagion Precaution Awareness, Awareness of Following Current Developments, and Hygiene Precaution Awareness subscales of the Coronavirus Awareness Scale were 34.27 (SD = 6.19), 12.94 (SD = 4.34), and 11.69 (SD = 3.60), respectively. It was determined that the total health literacy score was affected by gender, school, and grade/year (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior) and that COVID‐19 awareness was affected by gender, age, grade/year, school, having contracted COVID‐19 or not, and being vaccinated or not in the various subscales (p < 0.05). Conclusions Preservice primary school teachers' health literacy was found to be sufficient with a moderate level of COVID‐19 awareness. We recommend planning interventions for preservice primary school teachers that will improve their health literacy and COVID‐19 awareness, taking influential factors into account when doing this planning.