Abstract
Background and Objectives: The coronavirus has become a significant danger to human health. Health literacy is a major factor influencing health outcomes. The aim of this study was to assess health literacy and knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAPs) toward COVID-19 among elderly women.
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on elderly women living in Jahrom City in 2022. Participants responded to questions regarding sociodemographics, the Health Literacy Scale, and a researcher-developed knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, independent sample T-test, Tukey post hoc test, and multiple linear regression were employed to analyze the data.
Results: The study participants had a mean age of 69.73 ± 7.17 years, with 38.53% aged over 70 years. Notably, 83.3% of participants expressed trust in information from friends and relatives. The average health literacy score among the women was 75.79 ± 20.36, and 40.7% had high health literacy, 25.3% had adequate health literacy, 18% had somewhat insufficient health literacy, and 16% had inadequate health literacy. The majority, 96%, had good awareness, 94.7% had a positive attitude, and 87.4% had good performance regarding the prevention of COVID-19. The results revealed that an increase of one unit in knowledge and practice scores corresponded to a respective increase of 0.485 (p<0.001) and 0.274 (p=0.001) in the average health literacy score. Furthermore, age (<0.001), education (<0.001), and occupation (<0.001) of participants were significantly associated with knowledge and practice related to COVID-19.
Conclusion: The study findings underscored the positive correlation between high health literacy and individuals' awareness, practices, age of women, education, occupation, source of information, and marital status. Enhancing people's awareness emerges as a key strategy to bolster health literacy levels in the population.
Keywords: Health literacy, COVID-19, awareness, women, practice, attitude, Iran.
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