Health Literacy Level and its Related Demographic Factors among Employees of Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture Research (ACECR) - Khuzestan Branch

Background and Objective: Health literacy of individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make proper health decisions. Considering the importance of health literacy in all strata of society, this study aimed to assess the level of health literacy in employees of Khuzestan-ACECR. Materials and Methods: This analytical cross-sectional study was performed on 209 employees of Khuzestan-ACECR. Samples were selected and examined randomly. Data collection questionnaire consisted of demographic information and Iranian Health Literacy Questionnaire (HELIA). The collected Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics including independent t-test and one-way ANOVA in SPSS version 23 software. Results: The health literacy score of the research units was 73.13 ± 12.29.The results showed that 2.4%(5 individuals) of participants had low health literacy, 27.3% (57 individuals) had inadequate health literacy, 48.8% (102 individuals) had adequate health literacy, and 21.5% (45 individuals) had high health literacy. The mean of access to health information and reading in women was better than men, and the mean difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P 0.05). Among the different dimensions of health literacy, only mean score of decision making and understanding health information showed a significant relationship with age (P=0.008), type of insurance status (P=0.006) and employees work experience (P=0.005). Conclusion: Overall, the findings of this study indicated that most participants had adequate health literacy. Therefore, appropriate educational planning based on the above mentioned variables seems necessary to maintain and improve the health literacy level of employees.