1. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 1

2. 2 21 C H A P T E R HEALTH LITERACY AND ADVOCACY

3. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 3 Health Literacy Influences  Lifestyle choices  Health-seeking behaviors  Patient compliance

4. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 4 Low Health Literacy  Associated with: –Older individuals –Lower income levels –Less formal education –Minorities –Acute illness

5. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 5 Impact of Inadequate Health Literacy  Inability to give an accurate health history  Missed appointments  Noncompliance including medication errors  Inability to read/understand consent forms

6. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 6 Patients with Low Health Literacy  More frequently report poor health  Likely to make poor lifestyle choices  Use the ER as their primary care provider  Have delays diagnosing health problems

7. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 7 Improving Health Literacy  Information should be easy to read (Figure 21-5)  Information should be accurate

8. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 8 Tips for Creating Effective Patient Information Improving Health Literacy (cont.)

9. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 9 Assessing Patient Literacy Levels  Subtle signs—forgot glasses, brings friend to help  Literacy testing—WRAT, TOFHLA, REALM

10. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 10 Strategies to Promote Clear Communication  Ask Me 3  Teach Back  Closing the Loop

11. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 11 Measuring the Readability of Text  Consider sentence length  Count number of syllables in words  Tools: SMOG, Flesch-Kincade

12. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 12 Alternative Formats  Pictures—keep simple, consider population  DVDs, MP3s, etc. (Figure 21-8)

13. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 13 Tips for Producing Multimedia Patient Materials Alternative Formats (cont.)

14. © 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part. 14 Internet Resources  Develop a list of reputable web sites  Look at government agencies, universities  Be careful with “.com” sites