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• Currently, many scientists in the world consider the COVID-19 pandemic to be the greatest public health, economic, and national policy challenge of the century for many countries.
• Following the literature, Iran, like other countries, is affected by the negative consequences of COVID-19. Thus, some measures should be taken to mitigate these consequences.
• Self-care should be taken as a crucial strategy in epidemiological studies on COVID-19 to cope with the disease and the factors affecting it to develop a model to identify and understand the COVID-19 mechanism.
• However, various factors seem to affect people’s ability to care for themselves.
• Research shows that although anxiety reduces an individual’s ability to take care of themselves, having a certain degree of stress makes the person take more care of themselves and thus be less at risk of developing the disease. 
• To engage in adequate self-care, people are expected to have a high level of health literacy.
• Research also shows that patients with higher levels of self-reliance and independence are more likely to have less cooperation with healthcare providers, which in turn negatively affects patient self-care.

During the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran, self-care has gained special importance in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Although improving self-care behaviors is one of the most effective ways to control disease and its complications, only a low number of adults practice effective self-care measures. Various factors appear to influence people’s ability to care for themselves. The present study was conducted to determine whether health literacy, perceived stress, and anxiety sensitivity are correlated with self-care for COVID-19 with a focus on the mediating role of Health locus of control (HLC) in Ardabil City in 2020 using a descriptive-correlational design and path analysis. The research population included people living in Ardabil City. The participants included 300 persons who were selected via the convenience sampling method. The health literacy instrument for Iranian adults (HELIA), perceived stress scale (PSS), anxiety sensitivity scale (ASS), self-care questionnaire, and locus of control scale (LCS) were used to collect data. The results showed that health literacy and anxiety sensitivity are associated with self-care for COVID-19, mediated by health locus of control (HLOC) (both internal and individual). Thus, planning effective interventions to strengthen HLOC can improve self-care behaviors in people during the COVID-19 pandemic.en that the new coronavirus is spreading rapidly worldwide and many countries are struggling with this virus, evaluating factors affecting self-care behaviors can be a vital step in managing the disease and reducing its complications.