Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is one major problem in Thailand. Diabetic patients with limited health literacy tend to have worse outcome. The study aimed to determine relationships between age, income, education, diabetes knowledge, social support, communication with a doctor, reading health information documents, as well as health literacy and self-care behavior in patients with diabetes. A sample of 512 diabetes patients aged 18-80 years old were purposively selected from 13 community hospitals in Samut Songkram province, Thailand. Data were collected by using questionnaires. The 3-level Health Literacy Scale developed by Ishikawa was used to assess health literacy level. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearsons correlation. It was revealed that the samples had moderate overall health literacy (X ̄ = 2.62, S.D. = 0.50), good diabetes knowledge (X ̄ = 7.26, S.D. = 1.76), moderate social support (X ̄ = 2.98, S.D. = 0.63) and moderate self-care behavior ( X ̄ = 2.68, S.D. =0.33). It was found that education (r = 0.113, p = 0.010), income (r = 0.183, p = 0.000), diabetes knowledge (r = 0.106, p = 0.023), social support (r = 0.170, p = 0.000), communication with a doctor (r = 0.094, p = 0.034), reading health information document (r = 0.231, p = 0.000), and health literacy (r = 0.101, p = 0.023) had significant relationship with self-care behavior, while age did not have significant relationship. The results encourage health care providers to make more efforts to monitor factors affecting self-care behavior in the Thai diabetic patient population. They are also useful in guiding the development of appropriate methods to enhance self-care behavior.

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