Evaluation of health literacy level of Hypertension patients referred to specialized clinic of Farshchian Cardiovascular hospital in Hamadan and its correlation with Hypertension control

Introduction and Objective: Low health literacy is associated with various types of adverse health outcomes and inappropriate use of health services. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the level of health literacy in hypertension patients referred to Specialized Clinic of Farshchian Cardiovascular Hospital and its correlation with hypertension control. Methodology: In this correlational type of cross-sectional and descriptive study, 200 hypertension patients were investigated. Data were collected through three questionnaires, including Demographic and Disease Information Questionnaire, Health Literacy for Iranian Adults Questionnaire, Hypertension Control Questionnaire, and mercury sphygmomanometer. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 24 software. Results: The results showed that 89.5% (n = 179) of participants in this study had a moderate level of health literacy and 10.5% (n = 21) had a low level of health literacy and none of the patients had a desirable level of health literacy. The results also showed that health literacy has a positive effect on the control of hypertension in patients and with increasing health literacy in these patients in all areas studied (self-regulatory behaviors (P = 0.0001), self-monitoring behaviors (P = 0.0001), response to disease (P = 0.0001) and self-care behaviors (P = 0.004)), except for adherence to drug diet (P = 0.147), hypertension control improves. Conclusion: due to the significant impact of health literacy in hypertension control, identifying the effective factors in enhancing patients' health literacy and planning to change these factors can be an effective step in enhancing the health literacy of patients and thus controlling hypertension disease.