Health literacy of students of the Faculty of Medicine, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 - 2022

Abstract

Health literacy is the ability of individuals to find, understand, and use health-related information to make decisions and take action. An online cross-sectional study by using structured questionnaires in 448 students of the Faculty of Medicine, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City in March 2022 aims to describe the health literacy scores of students and explore its related factors. The result showed that the average score of general health literacy was 2.84 ± 0.40. In which, score of information find was 2.92 ± 0.54; Adding self-generated content was 2.67 ± 0.58; evaluating reliability was 2.74 ± 0.54; determining relevance was 2.85 ± 0.48 and the protecting privacy score was 3.01 ± 0.67. The multivariable regression model showed that the factors related to health literacy was lower in female comparing with male (OR = 0.88; 95% CI: 0.80 - 0.97; p < 0.001) and satisfied students with financial sources were higher than dissatisfaction (OR = 1.10; 95% CI: 1.05 - 1.16; p < 0.0005). The study provides more scientific evidences on the health literacy of students during the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic for managers in planning and implementing the improvement health capacity, especially students with low health literacy scores to ensure equity in health care.