Letramento em saúde em nutrizes para promoção do aleitamento materno exclusivo

Abstract

Health literacy is associated with personal understanding, encouragement and the ability to make health decisions throughout life. The aim of this study was to analyze the functional health literacy of nursing mothers treated at a human milk bank in the state of Maranhão. This is a cross-sectional, descriptive study with a quantitative approach, carried out with nursing mothers at the Human Milk Bank of the University Hospital Maternal and Child Unit. The survey was carried out between August 2023 and March 2024, using a form with 16 semi-structured questions that investigated sociodemographic characteristics, obstetric data and the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life, and two other instruments: the mini-mental state examination, which assesses orientation, immediate memory, attention, recall and language, and the Short Assessment of Health Literacy for Portuguese-Speaking Adults (SAHLPA-18), which has 18 questions on medical terms. The survey data was tabulated in a Microsoft Excel 2021 spreadsheet and the analyses were carried out using RStudio version 2023.12.1, which was considered statistically significant if p<0.05. The study was approved by thebb Research Ethics Committee (CEP) of the Federal University of Maranhão, under opinion no. 5.310.907. The study was carried out with 187 nursing mothers, most of whom were aged between 18 and 26, 45.46% (n=85), 40.64% (n=76) were single, 54.54% (n=102) had completed high school and 78.07% (n=146) lived on a monthly income of between 1 and 3 minimum wages. Geographically, 86% (n=161) of the nursing mothers lived in the state capital. The results of this study showed that 56.15% (n=105) had inadequate literacy, while 43.85% (n=82) had adequate literacy. Mothers with normal cognitive function tended to have adequate literacy in 49% of cases (n=75), while those with lower cognitive function had a higher prevalence of inadequate literacy. There was a statistically significant association between health literacy and the variables of the mini-mental state examination, age, schooling and family income. With the results of this study, this research has contributed to addressing the level of health literacy of nursing mothers, alerting health professionals to the importance of assessing it and adopting more effective communication approaches.