PETALING JAYA: The generally low health literacy among Malaysians is contributing to the alarming rate of critical illnesses in the country, according to an expert.
Explaining this, a professor at the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI (Science, Technology and Innovation) Policy Studies, Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim, said poor health literacy was causing many Malaysians to fail to manage their illnesses well.
He said a recent two-country study titled Respond that looked at the incidence of hypertension among the B40 in Malaysia and the Philippines found that many still had a poor understanding of how to best manage hypertension.
“As part of efforts to share the findings from the study with the public, especially the B40 group, a webinar was held.
“But judging from their questions, there are many who still have a poor understanding of how to best manage hypertension,” said Prof Ahmad.
“Many of them thought hypertension can be cured. It can only be managed and they don’t understand that it is a lifelong disease that requires you to be on medication forever.”
The same study found that about 14% of B40 patients with hypertension are familiar with the illness, about 80% had some idea, while about 3% are ignorant about the illness.
Prof Ahmad said the issue of poor health literacy and lack of knowledge of other illnesses cut across all levels of Malaysian society.
Low health literacy in fact is more apparent with the Covid-19 pandemic, which brings forth very clear evidence when a segment of Malaysians is doubtful about the efficacy of the vaccine, he said.
“(Poor health literacy) explains why people are hesitant to take the vaccination because they don’t really understand and they can be influenced by stories on social media – stories such as the vaccines causing certain effects or that it can stay in them forever,” he added.
The principal investigator of Respond from Universiti Teknologi Mara, Dr Nafiza Mat Nasir, said the study found that while hypertension patients were generally aware of their condition, they believed that it was not a “chronic illness”.“When we ask them about hypertension, they can provide us with answers and have the knowledge, there are some parts that they are a bit confused about, but overall their knowledge is good. The only thing is they didn’t think that hypertension is a chronic illness.
“This is something that we should be concerned about because they might not manage their illness well because of that,” said the medical lecturer and family medicine expert.
Dr Nafiza said based on her experience, even with the knowledge, trying to convince patients to change their lifestyle was not easy.
Pahang health director Datuk Dr Nor Azimi Yunus said there were still pockets of the community in the state who were unaware of the Covid-19 vaccine’s role and importance despite continuous awareness, education and advocacy being given by healthcare providers.
“Based on a study conducted by the Pahang State Health Department on PICKids (National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme for Children) in February, almost 70% of respondents in the study agreed they had received information on the vaccine from the health ministry but only one-third of them agreed that the vaccine is effective.
“They would rather wait and see or they are too scared of the side effects as claimed by others.”