Abstract:

Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine the health literacy level and related factors in patients admitted to the Internal Medicine Polyclinic of Pamukkale University Faculty of Medicine. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in August 2018. The population of the study consisted of patients who applied to Internal Medicine Polyclinics. The dependent variable is the health literacy level measured by TSOY-32 Scale and the independent variables are sociodemographic, health status and health service use characteristics. Results: In total, 388 participants' median age was 42.14±16.47, 36.9% of them graduated college or above. The first health institution to which the participants for health problems are family physicians with 35.3%. The average number of applications to any health institution in the month was 1.16±0.97. The percentages of the participants' perceptions of their health level were excellent, quite good, good, not bad, and bad, respectively 3.1, 12.6, 37.9, 35.3, 11.1. While 55.2% of the participants had a chronic disease, 59.3% had a disease requiring regular medication. The average index score of the TSOY-32 Scale was 31.18±9.20. When the health literacy level is categorically classified, 25.8% insufficient, 34.5% problematic-limited, 27.3% sufficient, 12.4% excellent health literacy levels were determined. Conclusions: In this study, it was found that the majority of the participants were at the problem-limited health literacy level (34. 5%) and the health literacy levels of the participants were related to some variables such as age, marital status, long-term place of residence, income perception status and their own health level perception.

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