Health Literacy among Mothers with Children under 6 Years Old, a Population-based Cross-Sectional Study in Iran, 2019-20

Aims: Health literacy has gained increasing attention in public health. It was aimed to assess health literacy and the related determinants among mothers with children under 6 years old. Instrument Method: In this population-based cross-sectional study, 1483 mothers were included through stratified random sampling. The study included demographic variables and socioeconomic status based on asset variables. Data was collected through Health Literacy for Iranian Adults questionnaire. The analysis was conducted in SPSS 16.0 and STATA 12.0 software using the principal component and adjusted linear regression models Findings: The mean age of the children was 2.1±1.5. The mean score of health literacy was 70.2±17.5 in mothers. There was a significant association between the mother’s and her husband’s permanent jobs and socioeconomic status and total health literacy (p 0.05). Minimum and maximum scores of health literacy were obtained in the appraisal and understanding subscales, respectively. Totally, 36.4% of the participants had adequate health literacy. Conclusion: The health literacy of the mothers was relatively high.