Survey of the Relationship between Health Literacy Level and health status among elderly people referring to Retirement Centers in Rasht city

Background and objectives: Lower levels of health literacy have been associated with adverse health outcomes, especially for elderly. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 290 retired elder from the Retirement Centers in Rasht city by Convenient sampling during the year 2017. Data collection tools included, Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults(TOFHLA) and general health standard questionnaire (GHQ-28). The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS. Results: More than half of the participants (54.8%) had adequate health literacy. The highest mean of the health literacy was in the domain of reading comprehension (36.30±7.90) and then in the domain of numeracy (36.11±11.60). There was a significant relationship between the level of health literacy and the level of education, the level of education of the spouse and the history of cancer(P