Abstract:
Health literacy plays a crucial role in enhancing the operational capabilities of inmates serving as Prison Health Volunteers (PHVs). This analytical cross-sectional study investigated how personal factors and health literacy components in health promotion and disease prevention influence PHVs' role performance in Health Region 6. A total of 332 inmates who served as PHVs were selected using simple random sampling from 10 correctional facilities within Health Region 6. Data were collected using a questionnaire developed by the researcher. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the data, with a significance level set at .05. The majority of PHVs were male (90.66%), with a mean age of 35.9 years (SD = 7.91). Most participants (88.56%) demonstrated overall health literacy at good to very good levels. Regarding role performance, 61.14% of PHVs were rated as having good to very good performance in fulfilling their responsibilities. Factors that significantly influenced PHVs performance included: (1) personal factorduration of being a PHV (B = .099, 95%CI .044.153); and (2) health literacy factorsaccess to health information and services (B = .344, 95% CI .016.671), communication skills (B = .630, 95%CI .1881.072), self-management skills (B = .460, 95%CI .072.848), and media literacy (B = .715, 95%CI .3651.065). These variables collectively explained 34.9% of the variance in PHVs performance. It is recommended to enhance the capacity of PHVs in information access, communication skills, self-management, and media literacy to improve their effectiveness in health promotion and disease prevention.