ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1628903
Health literacy profiles correlate with participation in primary health care among patients with chronic diseases: a latent profile analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Public Health, Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, China
- 2Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China
- 3School of Health Management, Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Given the persistent, complex, and diverse health needs of chronic disease patients, their health literacy and active participation in the process of primary health service delivery has gained increasing attention. This study aimed to identify the potential profiles of patient health literacy, examine the sociodemographic and health factors associated with these profiles, and investigate the relationship between health literacy profiles and patient participation in primary health care (PHC).Methods: A multistage stratified sampling method was adopted to conduct a crosssectional questionnaire survey of 911 patients with chronic diseases in Shandong Province, China, between July and August 2023.Results: Three distinct latent profiles were identified: low health literacy group (10.98%), moderate health literacy group (56.86%), and high health literacy group (32.16%). Age, marital status, residency, occupational status, education level, personal monthly income, and health status had statistically significant effects on patient health literacy profiles (P<0.05). Patients with higher health literacy exhibited significantly greater participation in PHC than those with lower health literacy (B = 3.544, p < 0.001).This study's findings underscore the need for tailored interventions to enhance patient health literacy. In addition, the findings offer valuable insights for enhancing health literacy in facilitating patient participation in PHC.
Keywords: Health Literacy, Patient Participation, latent profile analysis, Primary Health Care, Chronic Disease
Received: 15 May 2025; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Wang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Li Zhang, School of Health Management, Binzhou Medical University, Yantai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.