The rapid transformation of COVID-19 disease into a pandemic has forced people to learn about this new virus, adopt new behaviors, and make some lifestyle changes. In all this process, preventing the spread of infection and delivering protective measures to the society in a correct and complete manner constituted a very important part of the success in combating the pandemic.
While doing these, health communication including information about the virus and the pandemic has become widespread. One of the important concepts in ensuring success in health communication has been health literacy.
Before the pandemic, it is seen that studies on health literacy have been increasing in recent years; countries determine their health literacy status at the national level; While it is thought that the planning of health services to be provided to the society, the regulation of health literacy programs and the development of health policies, the importance of these studies has increased once again with the pandemic.
Health literacy education should be carried out from early childhood: Basic concepts related to health should be given starting from early childhood and the concept of health promotion should be developed during school education. This process should be reinforced with adult education.
In this context, it is not only the efforts of individuals or the health sector to improve health literacy in the society, but also the joint efforts of universities, non-governmental organizations, media and communication sector are required.
Effects of Care Burden on Elderly Care
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Aging, which is an irreversible, inevitable and physiological process in which some physical, mental and social functions decrease and losses occur, and the problems of the increasing elderly population are an increasingly important public health problem for both our country and the world.
Elderly care and care burden in this period are very important issues for families and caregivers. Care burden affects the health and quality of life of both the patient and the caregiver.
Interventions to be applied to the elderly and caregivers are important in order to ease the burden of care. Informing the caregiver as early as possible, training, counseling and providing social support are approaches that can be applied at the beginning.
In the education on health problems of the elderly, treatment, medications, fluid intake and extraction, mobilization, exercises and so on should be given to elderly. It is known that issues such as reducing the anxiety level of the caregiver and facilitate the management. The support of healthcare professionals not only in curative services but also in preventive and rehabilitative services should not be ignored.
She emphasized that both topics are important in protecting and improving public health.
