The purpose of this study was to examine how oral health literacy of mothers affect the oral health status of their preschool children. The subjects were 233 mothers and their preschool children who are between 5 and 6 years old. They were selected according to the convenience sampling method. The individual self-administered questionnaire was used for the mother's survey while the children were interviewed using structured questionnaire to examine their oral health status and behavior. According to study results, the number of decayed primary teeth and the number of decayed and filled primary teeth had a statistically significant negative correlation with the oral health literacy of the mother, the children's oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior (COHKAB), and the mother's oral health management behavior. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed after including general characteristics variables, the COHKAB and the mother's oral health management behavior. Meanwhile, mother's oral health literacy had a statistically influence on children's oral health status. The higher the mother's oral health literacy level, the lower the number of decayed and filled primary teeth were. The findings suggest that efforts to improve the oral health status of preschool children should consider mother's oral health literacy as an important factor. Therefore, the effective intervention and education programs are necessary to enhance mother's oral health literacy.
Child ; Child, Preschool ; Education ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Literacy* ; Methods ; Mothers ; Oral Health* ; Tooth, Deciduous

OBJECTIVE: Written information could be helpful for senior population to adhere to complex medication therapies, but must be well prepared and empirically assessed to achieve such end. We purposed to develop a drug information leaflet for senior citizens by applying 'performance-based user-testing.' METHODS: We employed a user-testing, a mixed method to figure difficulties out with patients' leaflets from the user perspective. The cycle made of test and revision can be repeated as necessary. We recruited senior citizens with age of 65 or above who were taking antihypertensive medications at the point of participating and excluded the elderly who suffered illiteracy. We firstly rectified a drug information leaflet of antihypertensive medications for the general public distributed by the Korean authority based on focus group interviews (9 participants). The revised leaflets were tested four times with 8~12 participants in each round (40 seniors in total). We targeted to develop a leaflet which more than 80% of participants understood 10 key information. Main outcomes measures were to be able to find information and be able to understand information. This study was approved by the Yeungnam University Research Ethics Committee. RESULTS: Focus group interviews identified difficulties with small font of words, professional language, long information, and a poor structure. The leaflet was revised and in the first round questionnaire found problems with 4/10 information points; interviews disclosed all but one (normal blood pressure range) were ill-understood. The second round questionnaire and interview found fewer problems but the comprehensiveness of participants was still poor in several points. For the third and fourth rounds we revised the leaflets in the individual-targeted manner. Finally, the fourth round showed all key information found and understood by at least 80% of participants except one question about drug name. CONCLUSION: The drug leaflets need to be developed in a personalized mode for the seniors. There was a limit for Korean seniors to understand nonproprietary name of their drugs because they used to producers' trade names which the Korean health system predominantly works with.
Aged ; Antihypertensive Agents* ; Blood Pressure ; Ethics Committees, Research ; Focus Groups ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Literacy ; Methods

PURPOSE: This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an adapted health literacy self-management intervention for elderly cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. METHODS: The intervention in this study was systematically developed through the six stages of Intervention Mapping Protocol and was based on Fransen et al's causal pathway model. A quasi-experimental trial was conducted on a total of 52 elderly patients (26 in an experimental group and 26 in a control group) undergoing chemotherapy in Korea. The intervention consisted of seven sessions over 5 weeks. The experimental tool for this study was an adapted health literacy self-management intervention, which was designed to promote a reduction in the symptom experience and distress of elderly cancer patients through the promotion of self-management behavior. To develop efficient educational materials, the participants' health literacy was measured. To educate participants, clear communication and the teach-back method were used. In addition, for the improvement of self-efficacy, four sources were utilized. For the promotion of self-management behavior, five self-management skills were strengthened. Data were collected before and after the intervention from June 4 to September 14, 2018. The data were analyzed with SPSS/WIN 21.0. RESULTS: Following the intervention, self-management knowledge and behavior and, self-efficacy significantly improved in experimental group. Symptom experience and distress decreased in the experimental group compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: The self-management intervention presented in this study was found to be effective in increasing self-management knowledge and behavior and, self-efficacy, and ultimately in reducing symptom experience and distress for elderly patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Aged ; Drug Therapy ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Korea ; Methods ; Self Care

OBJECTIVES: The development and validation of the specific health literacy assessment tool for older adults is the basis for conducting the research on health literacy among older adults. The existing health literacy assessment scale for older adults in Chinese mainland has some limitations, such as too many items and poor compliance during the survey. It is necessary to develop or introduce simplified assessment tools to support large-scale surveys in the future. This study aims to modify the brief health literacy assessment scale compiled by Taiwan scholars, and to conduct the test for the reliability, validity and the measurement equivalence across gender in the older population in mainland China. METHODS: From March to April 2021, 508 older adults from Jinan, Shandong Province, China were selected by cluster sampling method to conduct a questionnaire survey using the brief health literacy assessment scale and health-promoting lifestyle profile. After 4 weeks, 83 of them were selected for retesting. SPSS 25.0 statistical software was used for descriptive analysis, item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and reliability test, and Mplus 8.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis and gender measurement equivalence test. RESULTS: Each item of the scale had good discrimination, and there were significant differences in the scores of each item between high score and low score groups (P<0.05), and the coefficient of correlation between the scores of each item and the total score was between 0.721 and 0.891. Exploratory factor analysis extracted a factor with a characteristic root greater than 1, and the cumulative variance interpretation amount was 67.94%. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the single factor structure fit was good [χ2/df was 2.260, the Tucker-Lewis index was 0.973, the comparison fit index (CFI) was 0.982, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0.071]. The multi-group confirmatory factor analysis results showed that the brief health literacy assessment scale's configural equivalence, weak equivalence, and strong equivalence models were all accepted. The comparison results of measurement equivalence models showed that the changes of RMSEA were less than 0.015, and the changes of CFI were less than 0.01, indicating that the brief health literacy assessment scale had measurement equivalence between different gender groups. Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.945, and the test-retest reliability was 0.946. The correlation coefficient between health literacy and health-promotion lifestyles was 0.557 (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The brief health literacy assessment scale has good reliability, validity, and measurement equivalence across gender, and can be used as an effective measurement tool for the health literacy of the older people in Chinese mainland.
Humans ; Aged ; Reproducibility of Results ; Health Literacy/methods* ; Psychometrics ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Asian People ; China ; Factor Analysis, Statistical

INTRODUCTIONOut-of-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) in children is rare but significant, with poor survival rates and high morbidity. Asystole is the most common dysrhythmia, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is of great importance in such cases. We aimed to survey the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of parents in Singapore regarding infant basic life support (IBLS).

METHODSA questionnaire survey was administered to parents of children managed at the Neonatal Department of Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, between 1 September and 31 December 2008. The questionnaire consisted of three sections--section A collected demographic data, section B included questions on knowledge, and section C explored attitudes and perceptions. Knowledge T-scores were analysed for the entire cohort and subanalysed with respect to prior IBLS training.

RESULTSIn our study cohort (n = 375), the median Basic Knowledge (BK) T-score was 7 (range 1-9) and the pass rate was 55%. Median BK T-scores were significantly different between untrained (6; range 3-9) and previously trained (8; range 3-9) participants. A majority of the trained participants obtained pass marks. Median Total Knowledge T-score, involving advanced questions, for previously trained participants was 11 (range 3-14), but pass rate was low (35.7%). Higher educational qualification was a significant factor impacting all scores. Untrained participants indicated interest in attending IBLS courses, while trained participants were interested in refresher courses.

CONCLUSIONIBLS training, as part of basic cardiac life support training, is important given that CPR can significantly alter the outcome in children with CPA. Our survey revealed knowledge gaps that could be bridged through formal training. Refresher courses to regularly update parents' knowledge are recommended.

Adult ; Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation ; methods ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Health Literacy ; Heart Arrest ; therapy ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Parents ; Singapore ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

There is a lack of representative samples to provide reliable and accurate seroprevalence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as well as behavioural information among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Singapore. We used respondent driven sampling (RDS) to recruit MSM. Participants completed a survey used by Asian Internet MSM Sex Survey (AIMSS) and were tested for HIV and syphilis. We compared the characteristics of the RDS participants with STI diagnosis against those who did not have any STI diagnosis in the past 6 months. We compared RDS participants with AIMSS participants. Of 72 MSM recruited, 1 was positive for HIV (1.3%) and 4 (5.5%) tested positive for syphilis. Median age was 30 years and majority was Chinese (69.4%). RDS participants who had any STI diagnosis reported to have more use of recreational drugs (P = 0.006), and lower condom use (P = 0.054). Comparing RDS participants (n = 72) with the AIMSS participants (n = 2075), RDS respondents had ≥1 male partner in the past 6 months (P = 0.003), more casual sex partners (P = 0.012) and more STI symptoms (P = 0.019). There was no difference in terms of HIV testing and recreational drug use. The HIV and syphilis seroprevalence rates from our study are similar to previous reports conducted in high-risk MSM. In contrast to other settings, RDS did not work well among MSM in Singapore. The public health implications of our study highlight the challenges in obtaining data for HIV surveillance in assessing prevalence and risk behaviours among MSM.
Adult ; HIV Infections ; diagnosis ; epidemiology ; psychology ; Health Literacy ; methods ; Health Surveys ; Homosexuality, Male ; psychology ; statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Prevalence ; Risk-Taking ; Seroepidemiologic Studies ; Sexual Behavior ; Sexual Partners ; psychology ; Singapore ; epidemiology ; Syphilis ; diagnosis ; epidemiology ; psychology