Low health literacy and quality of life in patients with systemic arterial hypertension.

Purpose: Evaluate the level of health literacy and quality of life of patients with hypertension.

Methods: A cross-sectional, observational study was carried out in the Northeast region of Brazil with 105 patients with hypertension through the SAHLPA-18, S-TOFHLA and MINICHAL tests.

Results: For both literacy tests applied, it can be observed that about 60% of the interviewed patients did not present adequate health literacy. It was found that factors such as increasing age, lower economic class and lower education were associated with a lower level of health literacy. In the evaluation of the quality of life by the MINICHAL, 46.7% of the patients reported that hypertension interferes with quality of life. It was also possible to show that the time of diagnosis ( = 0.04) and the economic class ( = 0.008) influence the quality of life.

Conclusion: Hypertension is a chronic condition that requires continuous treatment and has potential risks of evolving with fatal and non-fatal complications that can affect the patients' quality of life. The data presented reflect the difficulty in understanding and processing health information, which may directly impact on the therapeutic management of hypertension.