Health Literacy and Self-Care Management Among Patients with Diabetes Mellitus in a Selected Private Hospital, Malaysia

Abstract

The number of Malaysians with diabetes mellitus (DM) is projected to increase tremendously by the year 2025. The complexity of diabetes care regimen requires a lifetime of special self-care management and adequate health literacy for self-care ability. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between health literacy and self-care management among patients in a selected hospital of Malaysia. This study was guided by Nola Pender’s health promotion theoretical framework which integrates nursing interventions to increase patients’ knowledge and self-care management. In this study, a nonexperimental descriptive design was used on 50 participants with DM who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The participants were chosen by simple random sampling method. The findings of the study showed that inadequate health literacy is associated with poor self-care management among DM patients. A direct relationship was observed between health literacy and DM self-care with Cronbach’s Alpha value (0.627 on knowledge, 0.424 on medication, and 0.738 on diet and physical activities). There was a significant difference between the health literacy and self-care management with (p<0.0001). Hence, the null hypothesis was rejected. The findings suggested that effective health teaching techniques as well as incorporating patients’ individual level of health knowledge and self-care skills is integral for improvement in diabetes outcomes.