development of a health literacy promotion program (helpp) to promote self-care behaviors and quality of life among rural patients with type 2 diabetes: preliminary results

Background and objective: we developed a protocol for a health literacy promotion program (helpp) to promote self-care behaviors and quality of life (qol) among t2dm patients in chaldoran county, iran. to develop the educational program, we primarily conducted a behavioral and educational assessment on the pre-test data collected from the participants. in this paper, we report a summary of the protocol and the primary results of the pre-test findings. materials and methods: the helpp protocol is naturally developed for a randomized controlled trial with solomon four-group design. developing the helpp, we will conduct it for both test groups. to plan the helpp and to find the main predictors of self-care behaviors and qol, we firstly conducted a cross-sectional study (as a needs assessment phase). so, applying simple random sampling, data on 160 patients were collected and analyzed. the validated scales (health literacy questionnaire (hlq), self-care activities scale, and diabetes qol brief clinical inventory) were used to collect data.results: the mean age of participants was 61.08 ± 11.35. the most significant determinants of self-care behaviors were understanding (β: 0.26), reading skills (β: 0.23), and knowledge (β: -0.19). self-care behaviors (β: 0.29) and decision-making (β: 0.28) were significant predictors of qol. conclusion: considering the predicting role of understanding, reading skills, and decision-making for self-care behaviors and qol of the rural t2dm patients, the focus of helpp should be on clear communication, goal-setting, and teach back strategies. the developed protocol seems to be helpful in promoting the outcome variables of the study.