Publicação

Health Literacy in Patients Hospitalized in an Internal Medicine Ward

Detalhes bibliográficos
Resumo:	Introduction: Health literacy is a topic of growing popularity given its relevance and impact on clinical outcomes. There are several health literacy assessment tools. The European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q) is the most recently validated in Europe, it has a validated Portuguese version and it categorizes 4 different degrees of health literacy (excellent, sufficient, problematic and insufficient). Lower degrees of literacy are associated with worse incidence and severity of illness, hospital- ization rates and higher morbidity and mortality. The goal was to assess the health literacy level in relation to healthcare. Material and Methods: Application of the Portuguese ver- sion of the HLS-EU (HLS-PT) questionnaire to patients admitted to internal medicine care. All patients admitted to the internal medicine ward were initially included. Exclusion criteria were evidence of cognitive or clinical inability to answer the questionnaire. Results: 64 patients were surveyed. Study population was mostly male (57%) with an average age of 71 years, retired (71.8%) and with low level of education (56.2% with academic education up to junior school). The majority (68.7%) had a prob- lematic or insufficient health literacy. Conclusion: Although the authors recognize that both the environment of the questionnaire application and the demographic characteristics of this study differ from the national and European study, it is a disturbing result regarding health literacy in hospitalized individuals with chronic diseases.
Autores principais:	Watts Soares, Adriana
Outros Autores:	Maia, Maria; Visconti, Virgínia; Fernandes, André; Espírito Santo, João; Oliveira, Isménia; Araújo, Francisco; Lomelino Araújo, José
Assunto:	Comunicação Hospitalização Literacia em Saúde Communication Health Literacy Hospitalization
Ano:	2021
País:	Portugal
Tipo de documento:	artigo
Tipo de acesso:	unknown
Instituição associada:	Sociedade Portuguesa de Medicina Interna
Idioma:	português
Origem:	Revista Portuguesa de Medicina Interna

Descrição
Resumo:	Introduction: Health literacy is a topic of growing popularity given its relevance and impact on clinical outcomes. There are several health literacy assessment tools. The European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q) is the most recently validated in Europe, it has a validated Portuguese version and it categorizes 4 different degrees of health literacy (excellent, sufficient, problematic and insufficient). Lower degrees of literacy are associated with worse incidence and severity of illness, hospital- ization rates and higher morbidity and mortality. The goal was to assess the health literacy level in relation to healthcare. Material and Methods: Application of the Portuguese ver- sion of the HLS-EU (HLS-PT) questionnaire to patients admitted to internal medicine care. All patients admitted to the internal medicine ward were initially included. Exclusion criteria were evidence of cognitive or clinical inability to answer the questionnaire. Results: 64 patients were surveyed. Study population was mostly male (57%) with an average age of 71 years, retired (71.8%) and with low level of education (56.2% with academic education up to junior school). The majority (68.7%) had a prob- lematic or insufficient health literacy. Conclusion: Although the authors recognize that both the environment of the questionnaire application and the demographic characteristics of this study differ from the national and European study, it is a disturbing result regarding health literacy in hospitalized individuals with chronic diseases.

Atividades financiadas

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