The Relationship of Health Literacy with Hypertension Self-Efficacy and General Self-Efficacy Among Schoolteachers

Background: Health literacy and self-efficacy are two key factors behind a wide variety of health-related outcomes. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the relationship of health literacy with hypertension self-efficacy and general self-efficacy. Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2016. Study sample consisted of 202 schoolteachers who were randomly selected from elementary and secondary schools in Qaenat county, Iran. Participants provided informed con- sent for participation and personally completed a demographic questionnaire, the short test of functional health literacy in adults, Sherer’s general self-efficacy scale, and Mularcik’s hypertension self-efficacy scale. The SPSS program (V. 19.0) was employed for data analysis through running the independent-sample t, Chi-square, Tukey’s post hoc tests, Pearson correlation analysis, and one-way analysis of variance at a significance level of less than 0.05. Results: The means of participants’ health literacy, hypertension self-efficacy, and general self-efficacy were 26.8 ± 7.5, 47.9 ± 11.5, and 38.1 ± 8.9, respectively. Most participants had adequate health literacy (77.2%) and high hypertension self-efficacy (71.3%), while only 9.9% of them had high general self-efficacy. There was a significant negative relationship between general self-efficacy and educational level. Moreover, health literacy had a significant negative correlation with age (r = -0.17; P = 0.013) and significant positive correlations with hypertension self-efficacy (r = 0.26; P = 0.001) and general self-efficacy (r = 0.15; P = 0.04). Conclusions: Health literacy has significant relationships with hypertension self-efficacy and general self-efficacy. Therefore, ed- ucational interventions can be used to improve health literacy, promote hypertension self-efficacy and general self-efficacy, and facilitate hypertension management.