The Effect of Health Literacy Programs in coronavirus Disease 2019 Prevention on Health Literacy, Desirable Health Behavior of the Elderly in Sikhoraphum District Surin Province

Abstract

 This research was a quasi-experimental design with one group pre-test and post-test. The objective of this research was to study the effect of a health literacy program for coronavirus disease 2019 prevention investigating the social-bound elderly in Kalamae sub-district, Sikhoraphum district, Surin Province, with a total of 30 elderlies purposively sampled according to the specified qualifications. The elderlies were programmed for 7 weeks. The research tools were the health literacy program for coronavirus disease 2019 prevention, which was validated by 3 experts with a content validity index of 0.92, and data were collected using personal information questionnaire, health literacy form, desirable health behavior form, and happiness form with the reliability value of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at 0.94, 0.96, 0.92 and 0.93, respectively. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-test.
The results showed that after the experiment, the average scores on health literacy in coronavirus disease 2019 prevention in terms of access to health information and health services, communication skills, self-anagement skills and medialiteracy were not statistically different from those before the experiment. Besides, the average scores of health knowledge, and understandings, and accuracy performance decision skills were statistically significantly able health behavior average scores were statistically significantly different from the pre-test, and happiness average scores were not statistically significantly different from the pre-test. The results of this research showed that the levels of health literacy in access to health information and health services, communication skills, self-management skills and media literacy should be appropriately disseminated according to the age and educational level of people.