Meta analysis of the correlation between health literacy and health related variables

Objectives: This study aims to identify the overall correlation between health literacy and health related variables throughout Meta analysis. To achieve the purpose, first this study examined the summary effect of health literacy on health related variables by analyzing correlation coefficients of selected studies. Second, the heterogeneity of effect sizes among selected studies was tested by analyzing the moderating effect of sub-groups. Methods: Sixteen studies were selected for final metal analysis and twenty eight correlation coefficients were used to compute the overall effect size. Meta-ANOVA and meta-regression were utilized to analyze the moderating effect of sub-groups. Results: The correlation between health literacy and health related variables was higher than the medium effect size, indicating that higher health literacy was significantly associated with higher levels of health related knowledge, behavior, self-care, self-efficacy, and medication adherence. Significant heterogeneity among selected studies was found but the moderating effect of sub-groups was not significant. Conclusions: This study will be useful to provide the rationale for developing health literacy programs.