Abstract
Background. The majority of current health literacy tools assess
functional skills including reading, writing, and numeracy. Although
these tools have been able to underline the impact of such skills on
individuals’ health behaviour, there is a need for comprehensive
measures to examine more advanced skills. The individual’s ability to
use health-related information considering his/her own health context,
and judging positive and negative consequences of their decisions
has been conceptualized as judgment skills. The present study
used a newly developed judgment skills tool to explore asthma selfmanagement
practices.
Design and methods. Eighty asthma patients were recruited from
medical offices during the year 2013. The questionnaire was selfadministered
and contained health literacy questions, the judgment
skill tool, the Asthma Control Test, and several self-management questions.
Results. Sixty-nine percent of participants had adequate health literacy,
while 24% and 5% had marginal and inadequate levels, respectively.
The high-judgment group referred more to their doctor when
experiencing asthma problems t(76)=−2.18, P