Association between health literacy and COVID-19 prevention behaviors among pregnant and postpartum women.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between health literacy and COVID-19 prevention behaviors among pregnant and postpartum women in Japan. METHODS: In this cross-sectional, web-based, self-reported questionnaire survey, we investigated the association between health literacy and COVID-19 prevention behaviors among pregnant and postpartum women in Japan. A multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association with adjustment for socioeconomic characteristics. RESULTS: There were 926 respondents, comprising 368 pregnant and 558 postpartum women. Women with high health literacy scores accounted for 42% of the respondents. This group had a significantly higher proportion of actively adopting preventive behaviors than the low health literacy group (33.5 vs. 25.4%, p = .008). The multivariable logistic regression analysis showed high health literacy was significantly associated with high preventive behaviors scores compared to low health literacy (adjusted odds ratio, 1.66; 95% confidence interval, 1.22-2.27). CONCLUSION: Higher health literacy was significantly associated with a higher proportion of COVID-19 prevention behaviors among women who are pregnant or postpartum.