Analysis of the Effect of Training on the Health Literacy, Awareness and Behavior of Diabetic Type II Patients, Referring to the Clinics of Zahedan within 2014

Background and Objective: The diabetic patients with low health literacy have more problems for understanding their disease and less participate in the self-care and blood sugar controlling activities. This study aims to determine the effect of training intervention on health literacy of diabetic type II patients referring to clinics (Imam Ali, Aliasghar and Khatam) of Zahedan. Materials and Methods: This study was a randomized controlled research that applied on 160 patients suffering from diabetes type II which classified in two intervention and control groups based on block random allocation. The data was collected by a valid questionnaire that before training was filled by two groups. The intervention group received a training session 45-60min as 8-person groups. 2 months (60 days) after training intervention, the both intervention and control groups filled the relative questionnaire again. SPSS v. 16 and statistical tests including independent t-test and chi square were used for analysis of data. Findings: No significance difference in awareness, behavior and health literacy was observed between two groups, before intervention; but, after intervention, mean values of awareness, behavior and health literacy in trained group was significantly higher than control group. In addition, after training the statistical test of independent t-test, significant difference was shown in change of skill score of accessibility to the information (p=0.008) and understandability of reading (p<0.0001) in the intervention group in comparison to control group. Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that even holding one training session for the diabetic patients may be followed by increment of health literacy 10%. Providing the training plan in simple language with high readability and accessibility to health information improves the health literacy, awareness and behavior of diabetic patients. And improve diabetic patients health literacy leads to better results in the control and treatment of diabetes.

Keywords:

Training , Health Literacy , Diabetes type II