Satish Chandrasekhar Nair|Yasir Al Saraj|Jayadevan Sreedharan|Karthik Vijayan|Halah Ibrahim
Health literacy levels in patients with type 2 diabetes in an affluent Gulf country: a cross-sectional study
Tawam Hospital|United Arab Emirates University|Loma Linda University|Gulf University|Shri Sathya Sai Medical College and Research Institute|Khalifa University of Science and Technology
identify health literacy levels patients type 2 diabetes mellitus united arab emirates uaenationwide crosssectional surveyindividuals type 2 diabetes mellitus attending outpatient diabetes clinics emirates uae surveyed january 2019 may 2020 832 patients approached 640 met inclusion criteria agreed participatethe outcome variable interest health literacy level measured using easternmiddle eastern adult health literacy 13 questionnaire association health literacy level age gender education conducted using 2 testonly 11 respondents adequate health literacy levels age education directly correlated health literacy levels patients age 50 years statistically significant higher rates marginal 106 238 445 adequate literacy 67 238 282 p0001 older population participants bachelors postgraduate degrees also significantly higher adequate health literacy levels 24 79 304 p0001the low health literacy levels found outpatients diabetes may major challenge optimising diabetes care uae addition health services strategies targeted educational behavioural interventions older population less formal education necessary