Factors related to Health Literacy in Illness Prevention among Buriram Rajabhat University Students

Abstract

A health science student is a health personnel with a role in caring, promoting, preventing, and maintaining health, thus they must be literate and knowledgeable about health in order for people to have a good quality of life. The aims of this study were to assess the level of health literacy in illness prevention and to study the relationship between health literacy and illness prevention among nursing students, Faculty of Nursing, and students from the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Science, Buriram Rajabhat University. The data were analyzed using mean, percentage, standard deviation, and Pearson correlation coefficient. The results revealed that the overall health literacy in illness prevention of nursing students (average score of 82.46 percent, x̄ =4.12, S.D.= 0.7, very good level) was higher than the public health science students (average score of 79.04 percent, x̄ =3.81, S.D.= 0.72, moderate level). When considering each aspect, it was found that health literacy of most nursing students was at a very good level while for the aspect of changing self-health behavior and the aspect of transmission of information in health care were at moderate levels. As for the health literacy of the public health science students, most of them were at a moderate level while the comprehension of adequate information and health services was at a very good level. In addition, health literacy was positively correlated with illness prevention (r=0.248) which indicated that good health literacy had a positive effect on preventing illness.