Health Literacy amongst Health Professional University Students: A Study Using the Health Literacy Questionnaire

Abstract

Abstract:Background: This study aimed to assess and compare health literacy levels in a range of university-based health students. Methods: A survey containing the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) was administered to students enrolled in university-based medical, allied health or nursing degree programs. The HLQ scores and scale scores were compared across student groups. Results: In total, 374 students (24% response rate) with a median age of 25 years (range: 17-61 years), returned completed surveys. Three students who did not identify their degree programs were excluded from the final analysis which included 371 respondents; 242 graduate-entry medical students (65%), 67 allied health students (18%) and 62 nursing students (17%). Overall, the medical students had the highest score for seven of the nine HLQ scales; while the nursing students had the lowest score for all of the nine HLQ scales. Conclusion: These results show that health literacy profiles are different across student groups. In order to provide excellent patient-centred care, and to successfully look after their own health, a high level of health literacy is required by future health professionals. Health literacy training modules, tailored according to the different needs of the student groups, should therefore be included in university-based health professional degree programs.

Functional Health Literacy among Undergraduate Pharmacy Students: A Cross-Sectional Study from Pakistan

“…There is a requirement of improved health literacy training for all students acquiring healthcare degree as students must be prepared effectively for communicating with low health literacy patients in order to achieve maximum clinical outcomes. 7 The results of the present study are quite encouraging as they showed that majority of the undergraduate pharmacy students had adequate functional health literacy. The results of the current study highlighted that female students had relatively better functional health literacy as compared to male students.…”

“…Similar findings were reported from studies conducted in colleges and medical universities of China. [5][6][7][8] The results of the present study highlighted that students studying in the final professional had better functional health literacy than students studying in first and second professionals of Pharm.D. Similar findings were reported in studies conducted in Britain, Indonesia and china which concluded that health literacy scores were linked with year of study.…”

“…Similar findings were reported in studies conducted in Britain, Indonesia and china which concluded that health literacy scores were linked with year of study. [5][6][7][8][9] The results of the current study revealed that students whose parents income was between Rs.31,000-40,000 had highest scores of functional health literacy whereas students having lower financial income had low scores. The results are in line with studies conducted in Britain, china and Greece.…”

Health literacy of undergraduate health profession students in Australia: A comparison of the island state of Tasmania and other Australian universities

“…The health literacy of health profession students is of interest because improving health literacy of the general population is integral to being an efficient health professional [8]. Communication with consumers of health, providing health information to healthcare recipients, and delivering quality care are fundamental to students becoming work-ready health professionals by the time of graduation [3,[9][10][11]. The development of the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ), has been shown to have excellent psychometric properties with high reliability and acceptability and has been used to explore health literacy across a range of populations world-wide [12][13][14].…”

“…The development of the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ), has been shown to have excellent psychometric properties with high reliability and acceptability and has been used to explore health literacy across a range of populations world-wide [12][13][14]. The HLQ is designed to cover the extent of an individual's strengths and limitations of health literacy [9,10,15], with recent research demonstrating levels are varied [3, 9-11, 16, 17]. Zhang and colleagues [9,16] and Mullan and coworkers [10] reported that health literacy levels of health profession students is inadequate and requires targeted interventions to ensure they are work-ready at graduation.…”