Relationship between health literacy and female cancers preventive behaviors

Health literacy impacts health behaviors, improving the access to healthcare and increasing the control of individual health. The purpose of this Study was to examine the relationship between health literacy and female cancers preventive behaviors a. in women attending to health centers of Shahid Beheshti university of Medical Sciences.
This was a descriptive cross sectional study and conducted on 500 women who referred to family health units affilitated to Shahid Beheshetic University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The Test of Functional Health literacy in Adults was used to measure health literacy. Binary logistic regression was applied to verify the chance of female common cancers preventive behaviors.
48.6% of participants had low health literacy level, 24.4% had marginal level and only 27% had adequate health literacy level. Health literacy was significantly by education (r=0/367), age (r=0/195), income (r=0/302), and employment. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that adequate health literacy increased the chance of doing breast examination and pap smear test (OR = 1.83 and OR =1.79), respectively.
The findings showed that health literacy was low among women and limited health literacy prevented women from performing cancer preventive behaviors.