Functional health literacy for maintaining active aging and self-care: a quasi-experimental study

Purpose To develop and apply functional health literacy strategies to promote self-care and improve the perception of quality of life in a group of active older people. Design/methodology/approach A quasi-experimental study. Findings About 41 elderly subjects participated in the study. The results of the group characterization show that most of them were women, married, illiterate or with incomplete primary education, users of the national health system and from more vulnerable economic strata. In terms of perceived quality of life, higher scores were observed in the psychological and social relationship domains. The lowest scores were observed in the physical and environmental domains. According to the WHOQOL-Old test applied at the beginning of the research and after the intervention, we observed statistically significant changes in all domains. The research showed that the interventions helped the functional health literacy of some participants and improved the self-care capacity observed at baseline. Based on the use of the ASA-A instrument, the self-care capacity of the participants, which was already excellent, improved even more. When comparing the functional health literacy scores before and after the intervention, no statistical differences were observed. Originality/value A quasi-experimental study with Brazilians aged 60–90 years. We used culturally adapted and validated instrument in Brazil to assess the level of functional literacy (B-TOFHLA), quality of life (WHOQOL-Bref and WHOQOL-OLD) and self-care abilities (ASA-A).