Health literacy among main caregivers of Children with Special Health Care Needs: a cross-sectional study.

to explore health literacy among main caregivers of Children with Special Health Care Needs by identifying limitations and potentialities and their relationship with socioeconomic variables, information sources and social support. a cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study conducted with 139 caregivers. The data were collected between December 2022 and April 2023 in a hospital from southern Brazil, by means of the Children with Special Health Care Needs Screener, the Health Literacy Questionnaire and a characterization questionnaire. The analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics. a number of limitations were identified in active care, social support and ability to find good health information. Diverse potentialities were noticed in assessing the information and interacting with health professionals. There was a positive association between the "Schooling level" and "Family income" variables and the "Feel understood and supported by healthcare providers" ( p =0.006), "Have social support for health" ( p =0.000) and "Appraise health information" ( p =0.038) scales. the interventions for caregivers should strengthen active care, social support and access to information, considering the influence exerted by the socioeconomic factors and the importance of good communication with health professionals to improve access, understanding and leverage of the guidelines, thus enhancing care quality and safety.