Examination Of Health Literacy Levels Of Mothers: An Interdisciplinary Study With A Child Developmental Perspective

Abstract

Introduction and aim: When health literacy is considered in terms of family and especially mother, its importance increases even more. Because the health literacy of the mother and the health of the child are related to each other, the probability of the children of mothers with high health literacy to be healthy is also high. Considering this situation, it is emphasized that health literacy is an important concept for child development professionals, who are one of the health professionals working with children. Because child development professionals involve families and especially mothers in the process while working with children, health literacy can also affect mothers' involvement in the process. Determining the health literacy of mothers and handling it with a child development perspective; It is thought that it will also guide interdisciplinary research on health literacy. In this study, it is aimed to determine the health literacy of mothers and to discuss them with a child development perspective. Method: In the study, residing in Mamak district of Ankara were included 100 mothers. Mixed method was used in the research. Quantitative data were collected with the “Adult Health Literacy Scale”, and qualitative data were collected through the “Questionnaire Form”. Ethics committee approval was obtained before starting to collect data in the study. Afterwards, the participants were given detailed information about the research and consent forms were signed. The research was conducted on a voluntary basis. After the quantitative data were collected, they were processed into the SPSS package program, and whether the data showed normal distribution was examined with the kolmogrov smirnov test. Since the data showed a normal distribution, Anova and t tests, which are parametric tests, were used in the analysis of quantitative data. Qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. Results: As a result of the research, it was found that the health literacy levels of the mothers differed significantly according to the variables of education level, education level of the spouse and having a chronic disease. It has been determined that mothers consult physicians for health issues, receive support from health professionals about their children's health problems, and explain the concept of health as physical, mental, social well-being and protection of health. Conclusions and recommendations: In line with the results obtained from the research; preparing early intervention programs as child developers to increase mothers' health literacy levels, conducting health literacy screening in clinical settings and including the assessment of mothers' health literacy in the child's assessment process, it may be recommended to plan studies involving fathers on health literacy.