The relationship between nutritional literacy, health anxiety and healthy eating attitude in patients with Type 2 diabetes

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between nutritional literacy, health anxiety and healthy eating attitude in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Material and method: This descriptive and correlational study was conducted with 259 individuals with Type 2 diabetes who applied to the Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Outpatient Clinic of Fırat University Hospital between December 2024 and April 2025. Data were collected by face-to-face interviews using the Personal Information Form, the Evaluation Instrument of Nutrition Literacy, The Health Anxiety Inventory–Short Form and Attitude Scale for Healthy Nutrition. SPSS 22.0 package program was used for data analysis. Results: In this study, the mean scores of participants' nutritional literacy, health anxiety and healthy eating attitude were 24.07±5.12, 22.54±7.12 and 66.90±9.19, respectively. There was a significant positive correlation between nutritional literacy levels and healthy eating attitude and a significant negative correlation between health anxiety levels and healthy eating attitude (p<0.05). However, no significant relationship was found between patients' nutritional literacy and health anxiety (p>0.05). In the study, it was determined that the patients' general nutrition knowledge, food groups, reading comprehension and interpretation behaviors were at a sufficient level, 51% had high, 44% moderate and 5% ideally high attitudes towards healthy nutrition, and 76.1% had high health anxiety. Conclusion: The study findings suggest that healthy eating attitudes can be strengthened in patients with Type 2 diabetes by increasing their nutritional literacy levels and decreasing their health anxiety levels. It is recommended to develop individualized and culturally appropriate nutrition education programs for groups such as women and those with low education and income levels. Health professionals, especially nurses, can improve patients' self-care and quality of life by providing counseling and education services to increase nutritional literacy and reduce health anxiety. Keywords: Nutrition literacy, Healthy eating attitude, Health anxiety, Type 2 diabetes, Nursing