[Re: https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/population-technology-and-research-cont... ]
Chris,
I agree that health literacy and health agency are of consequence within healthcare. Health literacy refers to the skills and resources needed to access, understand, appraise, use information to make decisions and to enact these decisions.
One study of patients in a general medical clinic found that many patients did not really understand the meanings of words that clinicians regularly use in discussions with patients — words like “bowel,” “colon,” “screening test,” or “blood in the stool. In another study, it was discovered that one out of four women who thought they knew what a mammogram was, did not. Studies in healthcare settings have shown that persons with limited literacy skills often have a poor understanding of basic medical vocabulary and healthcare concepts. Although many patients learn to act out their new roles of managing illness, disease, and biological life events, Barry Weiss wrote that “the North American Adult Literacy Survey showed that 22% of adult individuals could only perform basic tasks such as signing their name or finding a word or fact in a short, written article. The next 27% had somewhat more advanced skills but were still substantially limited in their ability to read and understand text. They were considered marginally literate. Studies in other countries made similar findings.
Individuals with limited literacy skills prefer information that has short words and short sentences and that contains only essential information. Long or unfamiliar words are often difficult to decipher. Simple, plain language is the best way to communicate.”
Research shows that 40-80% of medical information provided by healthcare practitioners is forgotten immediately making adult learning more unlikely. Patients who review their records have a second chance to remember and research what they heard during the consultation.
Studies show that persons with limited literacy skills also do not understand concepts basic to common diseases. Fewer than half of low-literacy patients with diabetes knew the symptoms of hypoglycaemia, and the majority of low-literacy patients with asthma could not demonstrate proper use of an asthma inhaler.
Patient agency refers to the patient's sense of control, responsibility, and ability to influence their own care, which can enhance health outcomes. Patients, communities, and families who are given the data, information, knowledge, and training, develop the agency to perform healthcare themselves in partnership with the service provider.
Patients agency allows the patient to use their records, apps, and the internet to learn, to think, to manage their health, add their results and observations to their records, prepare for, and improve, future consultations with their healthcare professionals, and, by reading the full contents of the notes, to achieve fully informed consent.
Digital records and health portals provide the knowledge for patients to manage many natural life events, infancy, childhood and adolescence, menstruation, puberty, sexuality, relationships, family planning, reduced hearing, impotence, infertility, workplace ill-health, mental health, disability, ageing, later life, and dying.
HIFA profile: Richard Fitton is a retired family doctor - GP. Professional interests: Health literacy, patient partnership of trust and implementation of healthcare with professionals, family and public involvement in the prevention of modern lifestyle diseases, patients using access to professional records to overcome confidentiality barriers to care, patients as part of the policing of the use of their patient data Email address: richardpeterfitton7 AT gmail.com