Health Literacy in Iranian Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: inadequate health literacy (hl) is associated with poorer health outcomes and worse health care. up to one-half of iranian women have difficulty in interpreting medical information, and national hl assessment has been limited in iran. we have undertaken a systematic review of the literature and used a meta-analysis to examine the situation of hl status in iranian women, and determine the relationship between hl and self-efficacy, and self-care behaviors. methods: six databases (pubmed, web of science, scopus, google scholar, scientific information database) and other non-indexed citations were searched using a variety of keywords regarding hl and iranian women. the bias risk was decreased by the involvement of two independent reviewers assessing study quality and eligi-bility of included articles. results: the average hl scores were in the range of marginal or limited (63.08; 95% ci, 59.83–66.32) in the iranian women. the hl score was significantly higher among pregnant women (67.55; 95% ci, 32.54– 82.57) and was lower in women with chronic disease (57.79; ci, 48.34-67.24). there was a significant association between hl and self-efficacy and self-care behaviors. conclusion: the average level of hl in the period of the review was marginal among iranian women. the relationship of hl with self-efficacy and self-care behaviors was statistically significant but moderate.