Determination of beliefs about oral antidiabetic drugs and health literacy levels of older adults with TYE 2 diabetes

This descriptive study aimed to determine the Type 2 diabetic older patients' beliefs about oral antidiabetic drugs and health literacy level with 131 patients who have applied to the internal medicine outpatient clinics and have been hospitalized in internal diseases service between August 2018 and August 2019. "'Patient Identification Form", "Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire" and "Health Literacy Scale for Adult Diabetic Patients" were used for data collection. Mean, standard deviation, percentage, frequency, ANOVA, t test and Pearson correlation were used for data analyze. Mean scores for Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire sub-dimensions were as "Specific Concerns 2.52±0.60, Specific Necessity 3.93±0.59, General Harm 3.07±0.66, General Overuse 3.00±0.44". The mean scores of the Health Literacy Scale for Adult Diabetes Patients sub-dimensions were as "Functional Health Literacy 3.44±0.55", "Critical Health Literacy 2.34±0.61", "Interactive Health Literacy 2.90±0.61". The specific concern beliefs of women, living in the district, does not have co-morbidity and do monitor self-glucose were high; women, and patients have co-morbidity had high specific necessity beliefs; the general overuse beliefs of patients who do not monitor self-glucose were high; patients who received diabetes education had high general harm beliefs (p<0.05). The functional literacy level of the patients with primary school education, living in village, who does not receive education on diabetes and poor dietary compliance were low; interactive health literacy level of the patients with high school and above education, women and living in the district were high; critical health literacy level of patients with good dietary compliance was high and the differences were statistically significant (p<0.05). A positive, weak correlation was found between specific concern and general overuse with interactive health literacy (specific concern; r=0.18, p=0.03, general overuse; r=0.19, p=0.02). To improve beliefs about drugs and to ensure individual management of diabetes in education and consultation of older patients with chronic diseases, health literacy level should be taken into consideration.