THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEALTHY LIFE STYLE BEHAVIORS AND HEALTH LITERACY: A STUDY ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

In order to create healthy societies today,individuals need to understand, develop and apply health information. In thiscontext, the question of whether there is a relationship between healthliteracy level and lifestyle behaviors of individuals constitutes the researchproblem. A questionnaire consisting of three parts was used as a datacollection tool. The first part of the questionnaire consisted of a personalinformation form, the second part included the Adult Health Literacy Scale andthe third part included the Healthy Lifestyle Behavior Scale. The study wasconducted on 18.03.2019 and 10.04.2019 in a vocational school in Kastamonu with149 students based on the questionnaire system. SPSS statistics (v.22) packageprogram was used in the data analysis of the study. Mann-Whitney U test,Kruskall Wallis test and correlation analysis and frequency analysis wereperformed.There was a positive but weak relationship betweenhealth responsibility, physical activity, psychological development dimensions,healthy lifestyle behaviour scale and adult health literacy scale. There wasalso a positive but weak correlation between general health lifestyle behaviorsand adult health literacy. According to these results, as health literacyincreases, it can be said that healthy lifestyle behaviors show a positivedevelopment.