An Assessment Of Health Information Literacy Among Rural Women In Delta State, Nigeria

Background- More than 70% of Nigerian women still live in rural communities. While a lot of women in this information age can read and write, there is still a good number of women who have difficulty with reading and writing skills. However, information about the health information literacy of rural women in Delta State is inadequate. Objectives- This study aimed at investigating the health information literacy of rural women in Delta State, Nigeria. This was done by assessing the functional, communicative and critical health literacy competencies of the women. Methods- The survey method was adopted for the study. The population for the study consisted of rural women drawn from three local government areas in Delta State. Data were collected using the interview method. A total of 205 women were interviewed in all. Descriptive statistics was used for the analysis using. Results- The findings of the study revealed that majority of the rural women lacked functional literacy, i.e majority of the women could not read or write. The level of communicative and interactive literacy is also low with most of the women not encouraging either as the results also presented. Critical literacy was scored high, however, most of the women consult traditional healers and relatives for information regarding their health. Conclusion- The functional, communicative, critical health literacy competencies of the rural women in Delta State was assessed. It was found that the rural women of Delta State cannot be said to be health information literate