health literacy among visitors of district polyclinics in almaty, kazakhstan

Background: this study aimed to evaluate health literacy levels of patients in almaty city, kazakhstan and to identify socio-demographics and socio-economic factors related to their health literacy. methods: an international survey instrument hls-eu-q developed by the european health literacy consortium was used in a cross-sectional study with 1000 citizens in the almaty city at the age of 18 and over who visited the out-patient departments in the polyclinics between feb and oct 2014. results: there were 552 women and 446 men completed the survey, with mean ages as (41.8 ± 13.9) and (44.7 ± 15.2) yr old respectively, and women were significantly younger than men (p<0.001). their general health literacy was (34.0 ± 8.6) for men and (33.49 ± 9.4) for women, without significant difference. in them, 15.5% or 30.0% were with inadequate or problematic health literacy. multivariate linear regression analysis showed that higher general health literacy was positively and significantly associated with high self- assessed social status (b=3.86, p<0.001), ability to pay for medications (b=3.42, p<0.001), low frequency of watching health related tv programs (b=2.37, p<0.001), moderate community involvement (b=2.23, p=0.03). conclusion: specific demographic and socio-economic determinants related to health literacy were identified the first time in kazakhstan. this would facilitate programs to improve health outcomes in kazakhstan.