The Relationship between Illness Acceptance and Health Literacy in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Introduction: To adopt healthy lifestyles for managing chronic diseases and ensure self-management and control of illness, individuals must accept their illness and have good health literacy knowledge. Aim: This paper investigated the correlation between health literacy and illness acceptance in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Method: The research was carried out as a cross-sectional study in Türkiye between December 2019 and April 2020. The sample consisted of 406 participants diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes admitted to a public hospital. Data were collected with an the “Information Form”, the “Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS)”, and the “European Health Literacy Survey (HLS-EU)”. Results: Participants had a mean AIS score of 26.21 ± 7.11. They had a mean HLS-EU score of 92.25 ± 15.76. Health literacy (HL), age, gender, people living together, smoking status, hospitalization, knowing about chronic complications, the presence of other chronic illnesses, foot care, and blood glucose monitoring were predictors of the acceptance of illness. A positive correlation was observed between AIS and HLS-EU (r = 0.46; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Participants demonstrated high levels of both HL and illness acceptance. The level of illness acceptance increased with the level of HL. It is necessary to develop educational content and materials tailored to the needs and HL levels of the patients to enhance their health literacy.