Effect of Health Literacy on Health Perception: An Application in Individuals at Age 65 and Older.

This study has been conducted to look through the effects of health literacy levels of individuals age 65 years and older on their health perceptions. The application part of study is composed of persons being age 65 years or older who live in Burdur province and districts of Turkey. The sampling of study has been determined by a nonclustered, single-step random probability sampling method based on primary mass ratios. Thereby, totally 611 questionnaires have been implemented by means of the face-to-face interview method. As a result of the analyses carried out, the subdimensions of health literacy explain 16.3% of total variance on the importance of health, 6.4% of total variance on the center of control, 10.8% of total variance on the self-awareness, and 16.1% of total variance on the certainty. In addition, it has been identified that the correlations of health literacy subdimensions with the health perception subdimensions were statistically significant, in the same direction, at low and medium level. These results show that the health literacy sub-dimensions is an important determinant on the health perception dimensions.