Survey on health literacy and influencing factor of family caregivers of chronic disease patients in Beijing / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To survey the health literacy and related factors of family caregivers of patients with chronic diseases in Beijing.Methods:A survey was conducted from September to November 2018, among 1 350 family caregivers of patients with chronic diseases selected by stratified random sampling from 6 districts of Beijing. A self-filling questionnaire was used for the survey, which consisted of the basic information and health literacy of family caregivers. Health literacy included three parts daily living habits, basic knowledge (knowledge of prevention and management of behavioral risk factors, knowledge related to chronic diseases and knowledge related to first aid) and chronic disease-related skills.Results:A total of 1 268 valid questionnaires were collected with a recovery rate of questionnaires was 93.9%. The median age of 1 268 family caregivers was 62 years (23-86) and 75.7% (960/1 268) were females. In terms of daily habits, smokers and drinkers accounted for 11.3% (143/1 268) and 21.5% (272/1 268) respectively; 82.7% (1 049/1 268) caregivers exercised regularly accounted, of whom 72.5% (761/1 049) exercised at least 4 times a week; 28.9% (366/1 268) caregivers had habit of light diet. In terms of basic knowledge of health literacy, 12.9% (163/1 268) of family caregivers mastered the basic knowledge (≥80% total score); family caregivers who were able to measure blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse, coping with hypoglycemia, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and dialing the emergency number correctly accounted for 27.4% (347/1 268), 18.1% (230/1 268), 15.1% (191/1 268), 15.7% (199/1 268), 6.0% (76/1 268) and 33.8% (429/1 268), respectively. For the six chronic disease-related skills, 23.7% (301/1 268) were able to call emergency number correctly and only 2.6% (33/1 268) were able to perform CPR. There were significant differences in the knowledge of behavioral risk factors ( χ 2=3.88, P=0.017), chronic disease related knowledge ( χ2=7.40, P=0.025), first-aid related knowledge ( χ2=12.04, P=0.002) and overall basic knowledge ( χ2=13.56, P=0.001) among family caregivers with different educational levels. There were significant differences in the knowledge of chronic diseases among family caregivers in different occupations ( χ2=8.78, P=0.012). Conclusion:The health literacy level of family caregivers of patients with chronic diseases in Beijing needs to be further improved, and there are differences in the health literacy of family caregivers with different educational qualifications and occupations.