A healthy lifestyle education programme for health literacy and health-promoting behaviours: A pre-implementation and post-implementation study.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether implementation of a healthy lifestyle education programme resulted in improved health literacy levels and healthy life style behaviours.

A one-group pretest-posttest study design was used. This study was carried out with 30 women who were enrolled in a family health centre. A questionnaire comprising the Adult Health Literacy Scale, Healthy Lifestyle Behaviour Scale-II, Perception of Health Scale, and Short Test of Functional Health Literacy was used for data collection. Eight home visits including training and follow-up followed the first interview at the family health centre. The healthy lifestyle training was applied once per week during home visits. After the training sessions were completed, women were followed-up through four home visits biweekly in the second and the third months.

The difference between the Adult Health Literacy Scale and Short Test of Functional Health Literacy pretest-posttest mean scores was statistically significant (P < .05). Although the Perception of Health Scale and the Healthy Lifestyle Behaviour Scale-II posttest scores were higher than the pretest scores, the difference between the groups was not statistically significant.

The training and counselling intervention visits increased health literacy but did not significantly change the healthy life style behaviours and health perceptions of the women.