Health literacy – study protocol for LiSa cohort study

Background: Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others, whether at home, at the workplace, in the community, marketplace, healthcare sector, or the political arena. The main aim of this project is to measure health literacy in the adult population living in the municipality of Leiria over the next 10 years. As secondary objectives it is intended to characterize anxiety and depression, metabolic risk and health behaviors in the same population and over the same period. Methods: This is a prospective cohort study that collects data on HL, anxiety and depression, health characteristics, health behavior and sociodemographic data. The study population will be composed by adults (≥ 18 years old) who are non-institutionalized and living in private households in Leiria. The random sample is stratified by gender and age groups. A face-to-face interview will be conducted with the Computer Assisted Personal Interview at baseline. Follow-up will be carried out every 2 years via telephone call. The association between independent variables and health literacy is examined by means of variance analysis with measurement repetition, and taking into consideration follow-up. Discussion: The LiSa project is a population-based study, derived from a random sampling technique that will allow the analysis of health outcomes in a representative sample of the population of the municipality of Leiria. The LiSa study will be a valuable resource for epidemiological research, as it will provide fundamental information to improve public health policies regarding health literacy in Portugal. Trial registration: Clinical trials: NCT05558631 (registered on 26/09/2022).

Description

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19148-8.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank to Professor Maria Pedro Guarino, coordinator of ciTechCare – Center for Innovative Care and Health Technology of Polytechnic of Leiria for all support of LiSa project.
Funding: This work was funded by Portuguese national funds provided by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) (UI/05704/2020) and Câmara Municipal de Leiria.

Keywords

Anxiety and depression Cohort study Health literacy Health related behaviors Metabolic risk

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/10004

Citation

Batalha, M.J., Gabriel, T., Valentim, A. et al. Health literacy – study protocol for LiSa cohort study. BMC Public Health 24, 1737 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-19148-8