Assessment of health literacy in the adult population registered to family medicine physicians in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Figures & data

Table 1. S-TOFHLA score mean values by sociodemographic and medical characteristics of the respondents.

		S-TOFHLA^a
	n (%)	Mean	Standard deviation
Gender
Male	52 (47.7)	26.3	9.2
Female	57 (52.3)	26.4	9.1
Age, years
≤44	36 (33.0)	31.0	5.8
45–54	19 (17.4)	30.5	5.5
55–64	27 (24.8)	25.1	9.5
≥65	27 (24.8)	18.4	8.8
Marital status
Married	83 (76.1)	26.2	9.4
Other	26 (23.9)	26.8	8.0
Education
Primary school or less (≤8)	18 (16.5)	20.4	9.4
High school (8–12)	71 (65.1)	26.2	9.1
University	20 (18.4)	32.2	4.2
Area
Urban	48 (44.0)	27.9	8.6
Rural	61 (56.0)	25.1	9.3
Change of residence
Yes	34 (31.2)	25.9	8.2
No	75 (68.8)	26.5	9.5
Employment
Employed	47 (43.1)	30.4	6.5
Other (unemployed, retired, pupil, student, housewife)	62 (56.9)	23.3	9.6
Material status
Poor	13 (11.9)	22.0	8.7
Average	55 (50.5)	25.3	9.8
Good	41 (37.6)	29.2	7.5
Life satisfaction
Low	11 (10.1)	20.7	9.1
Moderate	50 (45.9)	24.4	10.2
High	48 (44.0)	29.6	6.5
Family doctor visits
No visits	22 (20.2)	28.8	6.8
1–2	24 (22.0)	30.5	5.9
3–4	14 (12.8)	28.9	8.2
5–10	20 (18.3)	22.6	9.2
>10	29 (26.6)	22.3	10.8
Total	109	26.3	9.1

^aS-TOFHLA (score 0–36).

Table 2. Distribution of health literacy levels according to the sociodemographic and medical characteristics of the respondents. Data is given as number and row-percentages (%).

	STOFHLA
Characteristics	Inadequate	Marginal	Adequate	p-value^a
	n (%)	n (%)	n (%)
Area				0.017
Urban (n = 48)	8 (16.7)	2 (4.2)	38 (79.1)
Rural (n = 61)	11 (18.0)	14 (23.0)	36 (59.0)
Gender				0.856
Male (n = 52)	10 (19.2)	8 (15.4)	34 (65.4)
Female (n = 57)	9 (15.8)	8 (14.0)	40 (70.2)
Age, years				0.000
≤44 (n = 36)	2 (5.5)	2 (5.5)	32 (88.9)
45–54 (n = 19)	1 (5.3)	1 (5.3)	17 (89.4)
55–64 (n = 27)	6 (22.2)	4 (14.8)	17 (63.0)
≥65 (27)	10 (37.0)	9 (33.3)	8 (29.7)
Marital status				0.308
Married (n = 83)	16 (19.3)	10 (12.0)	57 (68.7)
Other (n = 26)	3 (11.5)	6 (23.1)	17 (65.4)
Employment				0.001
Employed (n = 47)	3 (6.4)	3 (6.4)	41 (87.2)
Other (unemployed, retired, pupil, student, housewife) (n = 62)	16 (25.8)	13 (21.0)	33 (53.2)
Education				0.005
Primary school or less (≤8) (n = 18)	5 (27.8)	6 (33.3)	7 (38.9)
High school (8–12) (n = 71)	14 (19.7)	9 (12.7)	48 (67.6)
University (n = 20)	0 (0.0)	1 (5.0)	19 (95.0)
Material status				0.154
Poor (n = 13)	4 (30.8)	3 (23.0)	6 (46.2)
Average (n = 55)	12 (21.8)	7 (12.7)	36 (65.5)
Good (n = 41)	3 (7.3)	6 (14.7)	32 (78.0)
Self-perception of health				0.007
Poor (n = 16)	7 (43.7)	2 (12.5)	7 (43.7)
Average (n = 33)	7 (21.2)	7 (21.2)	19 (57.6)
Good (n = 60)	5 (8.3)	7 (11.7)	48 (80.0)
Chronic illness				0.000
None (n = 34)	0 (0.0)	3 (8.8)	31 (91.2)
One (n = 26)	4 (15.4)	1 (3.8)	21 (80.8)
Two (n = 17)	4 (28.6)	3 (21.4)	7 (50.0)
Three (n = 10)	5 (50.0)	1 (10.0)	4 (40.0)
More than three (n = 25)	6 (24.0)	8 (32.0)	11 (44.0)
Life satisfaction				0.028
Low (n = 11)	4 (36.4)	2 (18.2)	5 (45.4)
Moderate (n = 40)	12 (24.0)	9 (18.0)	29 (58.0)
High (n = 48)	3 (6.3)	5 (10.4)	40 (83.3)

^aAccording to chi-squared test.

Table 3. Factors associated with health literacy according to the STOFHLA score: adequate (1)^a versus marginal and inadequate (0),^b ORs, and 95%CIs.

	Univariate			Multiple
Variable	OR	95%CI	p	OR	95%CI	p
Age groups
≤44.45–54 (1), 55–64, ≥65	4.67	2.36–9.24	0.000	3.88	1.38–10.90	0.010
Area
Rural, urban (1))	2.64	1.11–6.26	0.028	3.68	1.12–12.11	0.032
Level of education
Primary school or less, high school, university (1)	1.04	0.45–2.42	0.001	5.34	1.22–23.46	0.026
Employment
Retired	6.80	2.70–17.12	0.000
Other, pupil, student, employed, unemployed, housewife (1)	1.00
Material status
Poor	2.83	0.87–9.18	0.083
Average or good (1)	1.00
Family doctor visit
No visits, 1–2, 3–4 (1), 5–10, >10	1.57	1.17–2.11	0.003
Chronic illness
None, one, two (1), three or more	1.89	1.40–2.53	0.000	1.95	1.13–3.37	0.016
Self-perception of health
Poor, average or good (1)	1.94	1.23–3.05	0.004
Life satisfaction
High (1)	0.44	0.26–0.75	0.003
Moderate or low	1.00

^aHigh HL.

^bLow HL.

OR, odds ratio; 95%CI, 95% confidence interval.