Health Literacy of Type 2 Pre-Diabetics and Diabetics in Thailand
Keywords:
Health Communication, Health Literacy, Type 2 DiabetesAbstract
The aim of this study was to examine type 2 diabetes health literacy among type 2 pre-diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus patients using a quantitative survey approach. The 1,600 randomly selected participants, ages 20 to 60, who sought medical care in the 13 public health regions served as the study's target group. Data were gathered between December 2020 and April 2021 utilizing the created questionnaire. A descriptive statistical analysis was done on the data. The findings revealed that the samples had health knowledge skills, health information communication skills, and health media literacy skills related to diabetes at the high - highest levels (4.360, 3.704, 3.421). However, health information utilization skills, health information access skills and behavioral skills in controlling and preventing type 2 diabetes were all modest (3.308, 3.325, 3.377). Although a significant portion of the 1,600 participants had regular checkups (48.9%), they were at risk for office jobs (32.3%), infrequent exercise (63.4%), obesity (36.5%), and congenital illness (56.1%), and they entered the study between the ages of 31 and 60 (67.6%), before being screened for diabetes. A group of 766 persons with type 2 diabetes were less aware that they were at risk of developing the disease (79.1%). The research recommendations should focus on encouraging health literacy about type 2 diabetes as a silent threat that can cause complications and serious repercussions as well as risk behaviors that can result in illness, and on designing activity communication through personal media and mass media to targeted audiences who are able to apply the knowledge and skills to develop more healthy habits that will last over time.
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