Aims: We aimed to investigate the impact of disasters on individuals' application to health institutions and their relationship with health literacy (HL) levels. Methods: 209 patients who applied to the emergency clinic were 18 years of age and older and had a good level of consciousness and were randomly included in the study. A descriptive survey (19 questions) and the Adult Health Literacy Scale (23 questions) were administered face to face to the participants. The suitability of the data for normal distribution was evaluated with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The Mann-Whitney U test was applied to groups of two, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was applied to groups of three or more. Cases where the p-value was below 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: When the pre-disaster and disaster periods are compared, the rate of application to primary health care institutions has doubled. Those who do not have a chronic disease, who are >40 years old, and who consider themselves adequate to protect themselves from infectious diseases had high HL levels. Additionally, as education and economic status increased, HL level increased. 84 of the participants (40.2%) missed their follow-ups at health centers during the disaster period. Conclusions: It shows that large-scale disasters cause significant changes in individuals' preferences for applying to health services and that the level of health literacy is an effective factor in these preferences. Considering that individuals with low health literacy levels may not benefit sufficiently from health services during disaster periods, it is necessary to increase health education regarding disasters and increase health literacy in society.
Beyoğlu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.