Drug Literacy in Iran: the Experience of Using “The Single Item Health Literacy Screening (SILS) Tool”

Drug and health literacy is a key determinant of health outcomes. There are several tools to assess drug and health literacy. The objective of this article is to determine drug literacy level and its relationships with other factors using a single item screening tool. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1104 people in Qazvin province, Iran. Based on the proportional-to-size method, participants over 15 years old with ability to read were recruited randomly from 6 counties in Qazvin province and were interviewed directly. To determine drug literacy relationship with other variables, Chi-Square and t-test were used. Also, logistic regression model was used to adjust the relationship between drug literacy and other relevant variables. Response rate in clusters was 100%. Findings showed that inadequate drug literacy in Qazvin province is 30.3% and it was in association with (1) age (p = .000), (2) marital status (p = .000), (3) educational attainment (p = .000), (4) home county (p = .000), (5) residing area (p = .000), (6) type of basic health insurance (p = .000), (7) complementary health insurance status (p = .000), and (8) family socioeconomic status (p = .000). After adjusting for these variables using logistic regression model, the association between (1), (3), (4), (5) and (8) with drug literacy level was confirmed. The analysis also showed that this method can also be used in other health care settings in Iran for drug and health literacy rapid assessment.