Abstract:

Objective: To examine the impact of effective health information acquisition on hemophilia-related health literacy among adult caregivers of children and adolescents with hemophilia in China, and to provide evidence-based recommendations for improving adult caregivers' hemophilia-related health literacy. Methods: Data were derived from the 2024 nationwide multicenter cross-sectional survey, "Health Literacy Survey of Hemophilia Patients in China". A total of 856 adult caregivers of children and adolescents with hemophilia were recruited through convenience sampling. To explore the differences in hemophilia-related health literacy and effective health information acquisition levels among caregivers across different demographic characteristics, univariate ANOVA and independent-samples t test were adopted for statistical analysis. The bootstrap method was employed to test the mediating role of effective health information acquisition in the relationship between hemophilia-related health literacy and its influencing factors. Results: The overall level of hemophilia-related health literacy among caregivers of minor patients with hemophilia was relatively low, with an average score of 11.87±2.92. Only 20.68% of the caregivers for underage patients with hemophilia had acquired hemophilia-related health literacy. Univariate ANOVA analysis indicated that marital status, educational attainment, annual household income, registered residence location, and employment status significantly influenced adult caregivers ' hemophilia-related health literacy (P < 0.05). The utilization rate of various health information channels by caregivers of underage hemophilia patients exceeded 70%. Over 95% of the caregivers reported obtaining hemophilia-related health information from medical staff and hemophilia patient organizations. While, the caregivers demonstrated relatively low overall effective health information acquisition (34.43±16.50). The level of effective health information acquisition was related to educational attainment, place of household registration and employment status. Caregivers with higher educational attainment, urban household registration and full-time employment had a higher level of effective health information acquisition, and the differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The mediation analysis showed that the level of effective health information acquisition was positively correlated with hemophilia health literacy (P < 0.01), and effective health information acquisition played a partial mediating role between "education attainment" and "hemophilia health literacy", "employment status" and "hemophilia health literacy", and "place of household registration" and "hemophilia health literacy" (P < 0.05). Higher educational attainment and favorable employment status not only directly improved health literacy, but also indirectly enhanced it by promoting effective information acquisition. Compared with urban household registration, rural household registration had a negative impact on health literacy in patients with hemophilia. Meanwhile, effective information acquisition also exerted a partial mediating effect between registered residence location and health literacy. Conclusion: The hemophilia-related health literacy among caregivers of underage hemophilia patients is relatively low. Enhancing adult caregivers' effective health information acquisition of health information will improve their hemophilia-related health literacy. Tailored strategies to optimize effective health information acquisition for adult caregivers with varying sociodemographic characteristics could indirectly contribute to improved health literacy outcomes.

Key words: Hemophilia-related health literacy, Underage hemophilia patients, Caregiver, Effective health information acquisition