@article{article_257711, title={The Evaluation of Repetitive Admissions to the Emergency Department by the Perspective of Health Literacy}, journal={Ankara Medical Journal}, volume={16}, pages={255–262}, year={2016}, DOI={10.17098/amj.84540}, author={Öztaş, Dilek and Bozcuk Güzeldemirci, Gamze and Özhasenekler, Ayhan and Yıldızbaşı, Esra and Karahan, Sevilay and Karataş Eray, İrep and Üstü, Yusuf and Doğusan, Ahmet Reşat and Mollahaliloğlu, Salih and Öztürk, Mustafa and et al.}, keywords={Sağlık okuryazarlığı,sağlığın geliştirilmesi,kronik hastalık}, abstract={<p> <strong>Abstract </strong> </p> <p> <strong>Objectives: </strong>The prevalence and importance of noncommunicable diseases increased globally and several approaches were developed for the prevention and control of this group of health problems. For the prevention of noncommunicable diseases, people should change their life-styles and health behaviors. It is important to have sufficient knowledge on the etiology and development of noncommunicable diseases to be convinced and change life-style and behaviors. Health literacy is defined as “people’s knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, appraise and apply health information in order to make judgements and take decisions in every-day life concerning health care, prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course”. </p> <p> <strong>Materials and Methods: </strong> This is a descriptive research. A total of 15-month data belonging to the years of 2014 and 2015 (the first 3 months) in Ankara Atatürk Training and Research Hospital were evaluated after taking them from Hospital Information Management System. Data were analyzed in SPSS 13.0. Frequency and percentage tests were used in the statistical analysis. </p> <p> <strong>Results </strong>: A total of 1,608,795 applications were made for 15 months during which the research was conducted. 179,144 (11.14%) of these applications were made to the emergency department. 61.1% of the patients applying to the emergency applied within the working hours and 38.2% applied out of the working hours. Regarding the application hours of the patients to the emergency, most of the applications were observed to be made at 08:00-12:00(64.3%). 2,365 of the 179,144 patients applying to emergency during the 15-month period as of January 2014 applied again within 24 hours with the same complaint. The rate of re-application is 1.32%. There is a change in the rate of re-application to the emergency in time (p<0.001). No increase or decrease was observed in general, unstable re-application rate is in question in years. First 3 diseases observed in emergency are J03/Acute tonsillitis, J39/upper respiratory and other infections and J02/Acute pharyngitis. The diagnoses of the patients applying within 24 hours with the same complaints are I10/Primary hypertension, M79.1/Myalgiaand M79.9/Soft tissue injury, non-defined. </p> <p> <strong>Conclusion: </strong> Increasing level of health literacy is important for the prevention of diseases. Therefore, starting from early childhood period, including schools and in the working life, more efforts should be given to increase health literacy. The importance of general education level should be taken into consideration to increase the level of health literacy.  </p>}, number={3}, publisher={Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversitesi}