Health Literacy in Child Development Promotion of Caretaker and Development of Child Aged 1-3 Years, Attending Well-Child Clinic in Subdistrict Health Promoting Hospital, Chonburi Province

Abstract

This cross-sectional analytical study aimed to study the health literacy of caretaker in promoting child development and to identify factors influencing developmental status of child aged 1–3 years who attended well-child clinics in subdistrict health promoting hospital in Chonburi Province. A total of 325 caretaker–child pairs were selected using two-stage cluster random sampling. Data were collected from 18^th June to 20^th August 2025, and analyzed by Chi-square test and Multiple logistic regression analysis. Results showed that 40.6% of caretakers had adequate health literacy for promoting child development, while 59.4% had inadequate health literacy. Among the children 63.7% had appropriate development and 36.3% had suspected developmental delay. Significant factors associated of child development included utilization of the DSPM manual (OR = 6.53, 95% CI: = 2.93-14.56) caretakers’ health literacy in promoting child development (OR = 5.03, 95% CI: = 2.05-12.32) family relationships (OR = 2.71, 95% CI: = 1.02-7.20) not allowing children to use mobile phones (OR = 2.69, 95% CI: = 1.13-6.39) and storytelling (OR = 2.41, 95% CI: 1.05-5.52). These findings highlight the importance of strengthening the use of the DSPM manual and enhancing caretakers’ health literacy to support optimal child development.