Health Literacy in Orthopaedic Trauma Patients

Abstract

Therapeutic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Musculoskeletal Health Literacy is Associated With Outcome and Satisfaction of Total Knee Arthroplasty

“…They also showed that patients with lower educational levels tended to have lower health literacy than those with higher educational levels [11]. Cosic et al showed that by providing a predischarge discussion with the patient to include a handout with an x-ray of the initial injury, x-rays of the operative fixation, and a small amount of written material describing the injury and ongoing management, it improved patient health literacy significantly [10]. Institutions have different protocols in place for both preoperative reading materials combined with postoperative instructions.…”

Caregiver Literacy in a Pediatric Orthopedic Population: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Although general health literacy and musculoskeletal health literacy have been studied in the adult orthopedic population, there are very few studies which have examined the general and musculoskeletal health literacy of caregivers of pediatric orthopedic patients [23][24][25][26][27] . This is problematic as adequate health literacy allows caregivers to comprehend the medical knowledge needed to make informed decisions regarding the care of their children, and caregiver health literacy has been shown to directly impact pediatric outcomes in a variety of conditions [19,[28][29][30][31][32] .…”

Patient Comprehension of Common Orthopedic Terminology

“…McCormack, Evoy, Mulcahy, and Walsh (1997) have previously shown that many patients willingly consent to acute orthopedic procedures that they do not fully understand, particularly with the use of orthopedic terminology such as “fracture reduction” and “internal fixation.” Although an element of consent and patient care can result from trust in the doctor-patient relationship, in current medical practice a lack of informed consent has medico-legal consequences, particularly if complications arise. Previous work has also found that orthopedic patients understand little of their injury, acute management, and ongoing treatment, which may have significant implications on patient compliance with management instructions and recovery (Cosic et al, 2017; Kadakia et al, 2013). Given that in the orthopedic setting, surgery forms only the initial management of an injury, it is essential to ensure patient compliance with ongoing management to achieve satisfactory outcomes for both patient and surgeon.…”

“…The key limitation of the study was the cross-sectional nature of the questionnaire, with an inability to follow up with patients at a later stage of their management to determine whether comprehension improved. However, given that the number of previous orthopedic encounters was not associated with patient comprehension, and that previous work has found that orthopedic outpatient review alone does not improve health literacy (Cosic et al, 2017), it is unlikely that patient comprehension improved after the questionnaire. Additionally, in this study we did not examine whether poor patient comprehension was associated with understanding of postoperative instructions or compliance to these instructions, and ultimately to orthopedic outcomes.…”

“…In the orthopedic setting there are many medical terms used commonly; however, these terms may not necessarily be familiar to nonmedical lay people and thus can be confusing for patients (Azam & Harrison, 2011; Bagley, Hunter, & Bacarese-Hamilton, 2011; Kampa, Pang, & Gleeson, 2006; Lerner, Jehle, Janicke, & Moscati, 2000). Furthermore, there is a growing understanding that there are large groups of patients that have poor health literacy, particularly those from lower socioeconomic and educational backgrounds (Cosic, Kimmel, & Edwards, 2017; Paasche-Orlow, Parker, Gazmararian, Nielsen-Bohlman, & Rudd, 2005). These patients may need information to be more carefully delivered to ensure patient comprehension.…”