Evaluation of Menopausal Perception and Health Literacy in Women Menopausal Period with Chronic Disease

Introduction: It is important to note that individuals with low health literacy are more likely to understand health risks, assess different treatment opportunities, have less ability to comply with health care recommendations, use fewer preventive health services, increase spending with unnecessary hospital admissions, decrease the frequency of early diagnoses and higher morbidity and mortality rates. Methods: ？ank？r？ State Hospital was carried out with 175 women who were inpatient in the internal medicine clinic and were in menopausal period. Before starting to work, permission was obtained from ？ank？r？ Karatekin University Ethics Board and ？ank？r？ State Hospital. Data was analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics Version 20 package program. Results: Among the women in the study; 32.5% were primary school graduates, 37.1% had lower income and 94,3% were health insurance. The average age of first marriage was 17,5 ± 3,6. When the obstetric characteristics were examined, mean menarche age was 13,1 ± 1,9, menopause age was 47,1 ± 5,8, number of pregnancy was 5,5 ± 3,3. Diabetes, 19.6% Diabetes + Hypertension, 23.4% Hypertension were seen in the first three ranks when participants were diagnosed with chronic diseases. It was found out that 91,4% of the women were using drugs continuously and 9,1% were using cigarettes. In the study, 42.9% of women regard menopause as a natural process and 61,1% of them did not receive any information about menopause. When educational status is examined in terms of health literacy scale; (p=0,001) were significantly higher than the mean scores of the participants who graduated from high school and over. The health literacy score of the women with high income in the survey was found to be statistically significantly higher. (p=0,001). The health literacy score of the participants who did not use a continuous drug was significantly higher than the drug users (p=0,001). Conclusion: It is seen that factors such as education, and high level of income in menopausal women with chronic illness affect health literacy positively. Giri？: Sa？l？k okuryazarl？？？ dü？ük olan bireylerin, sa？l？k risklerini anlama, sa？l？k bak？m ？nerilerine uyma konusunda yeteneklerinin daha az oldu？u, koruyucu sa？l？k hizmetlerini daha az kulland？？？, gereksiz hastane ba？vurular？ ile harcamalarda art？？a, erken te？his edilebilen durumlar？n s？kl？？？nda azalmaya, yüksek morbidite ve mortalite oranlar？na yol a？t？？？ belirtilmektedir. Ama？: ？al？？ma, menopozal d？nemdeki kad？nlar？n sa？l？k okuryazarl？？？ durumlar？n？ belirlemek i？in yap？lm？？t？r. Metod: Tan？mlay？c？ tipteki bu