Investigation of the relationship between health literacy and attitude to the COVİD-19 vaccine: A case control study

In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy is a serious public health problem. It should not be forgotten that in addition to the need for more effort to reach accurate information about vaccines, people should have sufficient level of health literacy to understand, interpret and use this information. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the difference between the health literacy levels of people who have and have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 and to examine the relationship between the attitude towards the COVID-19 vaccine and health literacy. This research was designed as a case-control study and conducted at Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine. The study consisted of two groups, the case group included 184 people age of 18 and over and non-healthcare workers who applied to the COVID-19 Vaccination Unit to be vaccinated for COVID-19, and the control group included 184 people age of 18 and over and non-health workers who applied to the Internal Medicine outpatient clinics. The data was obtained through the data collection form, which includes the TSOY-32 developed by Okyay et al. and consists of three different parts. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of data, Chi-Square and Mann-Whitney U tests were used for comparisons between two groups, Kruskal-Wallis test was used for comparisons between more than two groups, and Spearman test was used for correlation analysis of continuous data. The mean age±standard deviation of the participants in our study was 36,51±12,77, 57.6% were women and 33.9% were high school graduates. Total reliability value of TSOY-32 was found as 0.905 and all sub-dimensions of the scale showed a statistically significant positive correlation among themselves. In our study, there was no significant difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated people according to SOY categories. Our results revealed that married people prefer to be vaccinated less than singles, those with less than high school education compared to those with high school and higher education, and housewives compared to employees. To maintain and increase the trust in vaccines, communication programs related to vaccines should executed, political and health authorities should follow a common policy.