Purpose: Based on the principles of the REALM-R, develop a Hypertension Heath Literacy Assessment Tool that would be used to establish the health literacy level of patients who attend primary health care clinics in Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa.
Methods: The location was four (4) Primary Health Care clinics in Tshwane Gauteng, South Africa. The research study followed an exploratory, descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative and contextual design. The research populations consisted of health promoters; experts in health education, and hypertension; hypertensive patients and printed health education materials, such as pamphlets, in primary health care clinics in Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa. Non-probability convenience and purposive sampling was used to select the participants.
Results: The LAB and the Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool indicated a strong positive correlation r values of r=0.5315*. Only n=37 (19%) of the hypertensive patients were assessed to be at risk for poor hypertension health literacy levels when using the newly developed Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool.
Conclusion: The Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool is a reliable and valid tool that can be used in a busy PHC as it takes less than two minutes to administer. This tool has an ability to inform the health care worker on the depth of hypertension health education to give the patient; this would empower the patient and save time in the already overcrowded PHC facilities which are the first stop point for the public.It is envisaged that the newly developed Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool will guide health professionals to identify patients who are at risk for poor hypertension health literacy to enable to plan and provide specific health education to improve their hypertension health literacy.