Exploring the predictive relationship between general health literacy levels and prenatal care health literacy levels

Background & Purpose of the Study: Health Literacy is important to physician-patient communication and health outcomes. However, disease and content specific health literacy has yet to be explored fully to determine its relationship to general health literacy. Prenatal care is the care that is important to mother and child during pregnancy. Prenatal Care is the content specific health literacy to be explored in this study. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a predictive relationship between general health literacy and prenatal care health literacy in pregnant women seeking prenatal care.;Methods: The study was designed to measure general health literacy and the Prenatal Care Test of Functional Health Literacy, to measure prenatal care health literacy. A sample of 90 pregnant women engaging in prenatal care participated in the study.;Results: All of the participants demonstrated adequate levels of general health literacy and high levels of prenatal care knowledge. Subsequent reliability calculations showed that the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults and the Prenatal Care Test of Functional Health Literacy knowledge portion might not be reliable in this sample. However, the results were important for clinical and theoretical relevance. General health literacy was found to be correlated with prenatal care knowledge. No correlations were found between general health literacy and prenatal care attitudes. No differences were found between general or prenatal care health literacy and trimester of pregnancy. Finally, a factorial analysis was performed and differences were found between education level and prenatal care attitudes. All results were statistically significant at the alpha level of 0.05.;Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that further research should be undertaken to explore and improve the reliability of the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults and the Prenatal Care Test of Functional Health Literacy knowledge in pregnant women seeking prenatal care. Finally, the differences in attitudes scores among pregnant women of different educational level provide opportunity for improvements in clinical encounters. Further clinical and theoretical relevance and future direction are discussed further.