Rational drug use and adult health literacy of children emergency patients

GOAL; The aim of this study was to examine the awareness of parents who applied to the hospital about rational drug use according to their health literacy levels. MATERIAL-METHOD; This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on the parents of children who applied to the Pediatric Emergency Department at TOGÜ Health Research and Application Center between 01-31 July 2017. In the face-to-face interviews with the parents who were informed about the research voluntarily by the researcher, the number (n) and percentage (%) were used as descriptive statistical methods in the evaluation of the data obtained through the questionnaire, and Chi-square test was used to compare the difference between the two means Significance Test and One Way Analysis of Variance were used. Results were evaluated at 95% confidence interval and p <0.05 significance level. RESULTS; 75.1% of the sample group was female and 24.9% was male. When the distribution of the parents according to age groups is examined, 20-29 age group has 32% distribution, 30-39 age group has 52.5% distribution, and 40 and over age group has 15.5% distribution. In the distribution of individuals according to their educational background, 30% of the group is primary school, while secondary school is 18.5%, high school is 26.3% and university is 25.3%. The majority of the parents are housewives with 54.5%. The settlement is mostly urban with 85.2%. It was found that 80.5% of the parents controlled the prescribed drugs, 70.4% never recommended any drugs, and 93.6% checked the expiration date of the drugs. The parents' health literacy scale score was found to be 15.4 ± 4.2. Key words: Rational Drug Use, Irrational Drug Use, Adult Health Literacy, Health Education