Purpose: The purpose of this study will explore the relationships between health literacy and self-care of diabetic management in adolescent children with diabetes mellitus.
Methods: The study design is a cross-sectional design. A sample of 60 adolescent with diabetes mellitus (include Type I and Type II) by purposive sampling will be recruited from outpatient department of pediatric endocrinology in a medical center.. Data will be collected by using structured questionnaire incorporating demographics, health literacy of diabetes mellitus and diabetic care knowledge. Self-care of diabetic management related data such as Glycated hemoglobin (Hb1c) and blood sugar will be collected from health records in hospital.
Results: The data will be analyzed by SPSS 17.0. The descriptive and inferential statistics will be used. The statistical analysis method include frequency, percentage and mean would be used to understand health literacy of diabetes mellitus and diabetic care knowledge in in adolescent with diabetes mellitus. And t-test, Anova, correlations, and liner regression analysis will be used to find the relationships between the variables and factors related to self-care of diabetic management.
Conclusion: Diabetes has also become the mainstream of childhood chronic diseases. Health literacy is defined as an individual’s ability that includes access, understand, appraisal, and apply as a way to promote, maintain and improve health. The results will reveal that the condition and stage of health literacy of diabetes mellitus in adolescent. That would understand the obstacle of DM health literacy in teenager and benefits the providing appropriate assistance for them. The findings of the relationships between health literacy of diabetes mellitus and self-care of diabetes management will reveal the related factors of self-care in adolescent with diabetes mellitus, in which could enhance health education for diabetes management in clinical practice and providing references for developing a better diabetes self-care.