| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 藥學研究所 === 96 === Objective：The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between chronic disease and medication safety knowledge.
Methods：The researcher of this study develops a modified Chinese version of Short Test of Functioning Health Literacy in Adults (S-TOFHLA) to meet the socio-cultural background and the utilization of medical services in Taiwan . To undertake low health literacy screening in chronic disease patients, the researcher uses S-TOFHLA to estimate the prevalence of low health literacy, and to establish the causal model of the relationship among demographic characteristics, health literacy, medication safety knowledge, and types of chronic diseases.
Results：The study reveals the research results as below:
1. The average age of the chronic disease patients in the community was 72.13 years old. Most of the people, mainly ethnic Taiwanese, live alone and are in poor economic conditions.
2. For those who suffer from chronic diseases, 35.9% in the population have more than two kinds of chronic diseases.
3. Men’s health literacy is better than women’s. That is to say, there is a significant relationship between the gender of chronic disease patients and their health literacy though there is no significant difference between male and female patients in chronic medication safety cognition.
4. The lower age group has a better awareness of health literacy. Age and health literacy are in a significant correlation. In addition, patients with chronic diseases having a higher education level perform better in the extent of health knowledge than those who have lower level of education. In the aspect of medication safety, the two different groups – the patients aged from 21 to 40 and the ones aged from 61 to 80 achieve statistical significance in difference. This means that the elderly patients who are more than 60years old have less cognition of medication safety than the younger groups.
5. The patients who have better awareness in chronic health have more knowledge in medication safety.
Conclusion and Suggestion： This study concludes with that in general, the patients who are at higher age and lower education level and in a poor economic condition have a worse performance in health knowledge concerning medication safety cognition than those who are at higher education level and in a better economic condition. This study suggests that the government and the hospitals should pay more attention to the education of chronic medication safety knowledge for the elderly patients to avoid the waste of medical resources and protect the patients’ health.
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