Abstract

A wide range of health-enhancing behaviours significantly depend on health literacy and consequently, drives health-information seeking needs of individuals. Traditional social settings play significant role in determining general health outcomes of individuals in a community. Studies that explore health literacy and preventive health practices in Nigeria are scanty. This study was undertaken to ascertain the level of health literacy, perceived-health information needs, preventive-health practices of a rural community in Ikenne Local Government area of south-western Nigeria. This was a cross-sectional study utilizing a validated 52-item questionnaire to collect information about health literacy, perceived health-information needs and preventive- health practices from268individualsselected by a combination of multistage and systematic random sampling in a rural community of Ikenne Local Government area, Nigeria. Male (32.8%) and female (67.2%) respondent shaving non-formal education 40(15.0%), primary education 56(20.9%), high school education159(59.3%) and above high school education 12(4.5%)with mean age of 32.2±13.11 years were surveyed. Majority were from the Yoruba (49.3%) and Igbo (40.3%) ethnic expressions. Ratings for health literacy measured on an aggregated 27-point scale recorded a mean of 14.97±4.23and for perceived health information needs measured on a 51-point scale wasa mean of 25.7±5.65 while preventive health actions measured on a 48- point scale for respondents in this study recorded a mean score of 23.37±7.27.The study concludes that levels of health literacy, perceived-information needs and preventive-health actions observed are unacceptably low. Health-information deficit could be an important factor in the observed low preventive-health action reported.