Lifelong Learning for the Development of Health Literacy

Today literacy is a broad concept that does not only include functional literacy of reading, writing and communication of an individual, but is based on the definition of various forms of literacy related to different fields. Among the specific fields of literacy, the health literacy is of the utmost importance for the quality of one's life, because it can be defined as functional literacy in the field of health, which includes abilities, knowledge, skills and motivation to enable the individual to cope with the circumstances of strengthening and preserving health, to recognise signs of illness, to cope with disease, to rehabilitate after illness or injury, and is developing throughout an individual’s live, based on formal and informal education, experience and other forms of individual interaction with the environment, particularly in the field of health. Health literacy on the level of an individual is a measurable concept. The purpose of the research is to present and validate an instrument for measuring health literacy. A quantitative research was conducted which has validated an instrument for measuring the dependent and independent variables, which were formed on the basis of literature review. The research was conducted on the population of patients in the Slovenian reference clinics. The validated instrument can be a tool for designing health educational activities or guidelines and for designing health education for the entire population, since it allows, with the assessment of health literacy, the creation of fundamental forms and methods of activities adapted to the individual, directed at the care for their own health.