health literacy in periodontal patients

Introduction: health literacy is a fundamental part of the healing promotion. The aim of this study was to evaluate periodontal health literacy among patients. Materials and methods: 296 patients attending periodontal clinic who were above 16 years old participated in this study. Gathering data was based on screening questions on a 5-point Likert scale. After completion questionnaire, data was analyzed by Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test. Based on the scores of questions, patients were classified as weak, medium and good health literacy. Result: This study showed significant difference in health literacy between age and education groups (P value = 0.015, P value = 0.003), while there was no significant difference between male and female (P value = 0.54). It was also revealed that patients who had been exposed to oral health education had higher health literacy levels ( P value < 0.0001, P value = 0.001). Conclusion: The results of this study showed patients less than 20 years and over 50 years old had poorer heath literacy in relation of periodontal heath, also, patients with higher educational level have higher health literacy.