Investigating the relationship between health literacy and Covid-19 preventive behaviors: A cross-sectional study in Hormozgan, Iran.

Background and Objective: A massive amount of formal and informal information about Covid-19 has become a challenge during the pandemic. Therefore, health literacy (HL) development is more important than ever to prepare society for emergent conditions. This study aimed to determine the relationship between health literacy and Covid-19 preventive behaviors in Hormozgan, Iran.Material and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on participants over 15 years of age who resided in Hormozgan Province, Iran. A total number of 1,292 valid answers were obtained from participants selected through a convenience sampling during December 2021-January 2022. The data were collected using reliable and valid questionnaires including: The Health Literacy Instrument for Iranian Adults (a common standard questionnaire in Iran) and the researcher-made Covid-19 preventive behaviors questionnaire. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analysis were used for data analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics®, version 26.0.  Results: The mean age of participants was 36.78 ± 10.44 years and their age ranged between 15 and70 years. Among all participants, 45.7% had a high HL and 94.3% reported to have good Covid-19 preventive behaviors. The results showed a significant relationship between behavior and health literacy with age, gender, marital status, education level and source of information. The multiple linear regression findings showed that health literacy was a predictor of the preventive behaviors (p-value lt;0.001).Conclusion: The present study showed that HL is a predictor of Covid-19 preventive behaviours. Also, HCWs were regarded as the most widely used sources of Covid-19 information. Monitoring is also recommended to improve the quality of online health-related information and increase the HL of content producers.