Health literacy and self-care behaviors in persons with lung cancer receiving chemotherapy

Abstract

Lung cancer has high mortality rates. Most patients suffer serious fatigue, infection and malnutrition, anemia, nausea, and vomiting resulting from chemotherapy. It is important to provide health education to these patients to increase self-care behaviors to decrease serious complications from chemotherapy. This descriptive study aimed to determine the correlation between health literacy and self-care behaviors in lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. A total of 161 lung cancer patients receiving chemotherapy participated in the study. Data were collected from the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University and the Tumor Hospital of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University. The instruments used for data collection were the Demographic Data Record Form, the Chinese Functional Communication Critical Health Literacy Scale (FCCHL), and the Chinese version of The Leuven Questionnaire for Patient Self-care during Chemotherapy (L-PaSC). Descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation were used for data analysis.

The results are presented as follows: 1. The mean of health literacy was 2.13 (SD = 0.88, range = 1-4); the mean score of functional health literacy was 2.33 (SD = 1.04, range = 1-4); the mean score of communicative health literacy was 2.16 (SD = 1.04, range = 1-4); and the mean score of critical health literacy was 1.85 (SD = 0.91, range = 1-4). 2. The mean total score of self-care behavior was 42.60 (SD = 0.20, range = 12-94). The mean total score of the adhering to treatment recommendations and managing treatment-related events subscale was 32.40 (SD = 0.25, range = 0-93). The mean total score of the relieving symptoms subscale was 88.63 (SD = 0.24, range = 0-100) in patients receiving chemotherapy for lung cancer in this study. 3. In this study, a strong correlation was found between health literacy and self-care behavior (r = 0.518, P < 0.001). Furthermore, functional health literacy (r = .437, P < 0.001), communicative health literacy (r = .437, P < 0.001), and critical health literacy (r = .537, P < 0.001) among lung cancer chemotherapy patients were significantly correlated with self-care behavior. The results reveal the relationship between health literacy and self-care behavior in patients with lung cancer chemotherapy. The results of this study provide basic information for increasing health literacy to improve self-care behavior among persons with lung cancer receiving chemotherapy.