Özet:

Objective: This study was conducted to determine health literacy levels and related factors of family caregivers of people with dementia (PwD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with 114 family caregivers of PwD between October-November 2021. Purposeful sampling method was used in the study. The data were collected using socio-demographic form, European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU) and fear of COVID-19 scale. The assessment of the data was carried out by researchers using the SPSS 24.0 program. Number, percentage, mean, One-way ANOVA test and chi-square test were used in the analysis of the data. Results: The mean age of the caregivers of PwD who participated in the study was 55.90±10.72 years (min-max: 20-79), 82.5% of them were women, 66.7% of them had an income equal to expenses, and 55.4% of them had a bachelor's degree. The 34.2% of the caregivers had sufficient and excellent health literacy level. Statistically significant relationship was found between the health literacy levels of the caregivers and mean scores of general health literacy, working and educational status (p<0.05). There is no statistically significant relationship between the health literacy levels of the caregivers and their mean of age, sex, level of fear of COVID-19, status of reading health information on the internet (p>0.05). Conclusion: This study sheds light on the health literacy levels and related factors of family caregivers of PwD during the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with these results, it is recommended to improve the health literacy levels of caregivers, especially to those who are unemployed and undereducated. In addition, it has been revealed that two-thirds of caregivers have insufficient and problematic-limited level of health literacy. It is recommended that health professionals help family caregivers of PwD to effectively access, understand, appraise, and apply to/of health information.

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