Determination of the health literacy level in adult age group women registered at Yenimahalle Çarşi Family Health Center

Low health literacy is an important public health problem in the world and in Turkey. The level of health literacy and related factors are important in improving women's health and enabling women to benefit from basic health services. For this reason, this descriptive study was planned to determine the health literacy level of adult women (18-60 years old) registered in Yenimahalle Çarşı Family Health Center (FHC) and related factors. The population of the research consists of literate adult age (18-60) women registered in Yenimahalle Çarşı FHC. A questionnaire with 20 questions and a valid and reliable Health Literacy Scale, previously developed by Hacettepe University, were filled in by the participants themselves under observation, taking into account the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, to 418 women who participated in the sample with the sampling method. The findings of the research were calculated by using "Shapiro-Wilk, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, Sperman-Brown, Dunn Multiple Comparison test" and various programs. In this study, it was determined that sociodemographic and personal characteristics affect the level of health literacy and self-efficacy. In the sub-dimensions of "Protection-Health Development" and "Access to Treatment-Health Services", the internal consistency was found to be 0.858 and the two-half reliability was 0.793, at a sufficient level. The construct validity of the HU-SOY Scale and the Self-Efficacy Form was verified by CFA. A significant difference was found in favor of the healthcare worker group, thus confirming the criterion validity of the scale. As age groups increased, the level of health literacy decreased. It was observed that the highest mean score of HU-SOY was in the age group below 30, and the lowest in the age group of 40-49. A statistically significant difference was found between high school graduates and college/university graduates (p<0.001), between working and non-working participants (p=0.008), and having or not having health insurance (p<0.001). It is thought that the health literacy level of women can be increased and women's health can be improved by improving socioeconomic conditions, educating women and eliminating inequalities. Keywords: health literacy, health promotion, women health