The Effects of the Health Literacy levels of Academic Staff in Sports Sciences on the Healthy Life Awareness levels

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the effect of the health literacy of academics working in the field of sports sciences on awareness of healthy life. The sample of the study consisted of Turkey Sports Sciences Association members and the 224 sports scientists [n: 67 (29.9%) females and n: 157 (70.1%) were males] with different titles. The Health Literacy Scale, which consists of 25 items and 4 sub-dimensions (access to information, understanding information, appraisal/evaluation, and application/use) developed by Aras and Bayik Temel (2017), and the Healthy Life Awareness Scale developed by Ozer (2019) and consisting of 15 items and 4 sub-dimensions (socialization, responsibility, change, and nutrition) was used as data collection tools. According to the results of the research, it was determined that the health literacy and awareness of the healthy life of the participants were at a high level. Additionally, it was concluded that the practice/use sub-dimension affected the socialization, responsibility, change, and nutrition sub-dimensions and the responsibility sub-dimension of the appraisal/evaluation sub-dimension and the change sub-dimension of the access to information sub-dimension. As a result, it was determined that health literacy explained socialization by 12%, responsibility by 21%, change by 35%, and nutrition by 22%. This result showed that health literacy was an important variable in explaining to healthy life awareness.