Conceptual aspects and factors associated with Functional Health Literacy: a literary review

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to review scientific productions concerning the evaluation of functional health literacy, which is associated with quality of life, and methodologically analyze the observational studies about this theme. An integrative review has been produced using scientific articles related to the following themes: functional health literacy and quality of life through searches in the PubMed, Lilacs and "Biblioteca Virtual de Saúde" databases. After applying the inclusion criteria, 538 articles were obtained, then, after applying the exclusion criteria, 11 articles were selected. Nine out of the eleven articles are international and the remaining 2 are national. The review consisted of compiling and constructing a historical timeline of the publications with methodological analysis of observational studies and the elaboration of word clouds. Most of the articles have quantitative analysis, adults and elders as target groups and measurements of the levels of functional health literacy. This study verified the positive associations between functional health literacy, low education, advanced age, the male gender and low income. Most scenarios were healthcare environments. Functional health literacy presented an association with social-demographic variables, such as sex, age and education. Most studies presented in this study had the goal of relating literacy to pathologies and were done in clinical environments such as hospitals and health clinics. All eight observational articles included in the review fit the methodological criteria for the elaboration of this type of study.

Keywords:
Health Literacy; Health Education; Information Literacy; Quality of Life