Understanding Health Literacy and its Impact on Delivering Care to Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

Health literacy (HL) is the extent to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information that is needed to make appropriate health decisions. As adults with inflammatory bowel disease engage in complex health decisions throughout their lives, attention is needed regarding the influence of HL on the lives of people with inflammatory bowel disease. About one-third of adults in the United States have limited HL. Limited HL is a potentially modifiable risk factor that has been associated with barriers to patient-provider communication and worse health outcomes for people with a range of chronic diseases. Gastroenterologists must recognize the role of HL in their practice. Limited HL can affect a patient's ability to understand the purpose of a screening test for colorectal cancer, understand the concept of an asymptomatic yet chronic disease, ask questions in an office visit and engage in shared decision making. Gastroenterologists must approach each patient as potentially having limited HL and use clear communication strategies in all encounters. Currently, there is a lack of training, education, and support for health care providers to meet the needs of patients with limited HL. More research is needed in inflammatory bowel disease to understand the impact of limited health literacy on health outcomes in this population and develop effective systems-based interventions to reduce the health literacy burden on patients. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2016;22:745-751)

Educational innovations in the approach of outpatients to improve health literacy

“…The perception of greater proximity to the physician was reported by 82% of the patients and this was also a positive factor to reduce the gap between medical knowledge, knowledge of the disease and the patient's treatment. Some regional and cultural characteristics must be considered in patients' adherence to videos or adherence to treatment, as there may be signi cant differences (Tormey et al 2016). Larger studies with similar population are necessary to allow comparisons.…”

“…Empowering patients with knowledge about their disease can increase engagement in disease management and improve health outcomes (Tormey et al 2016;Tormey et al 2019). Besides that, a study observed that there are few researchers investigating adherence to drug treatment in chronic gastrointestinal diseases (Dewulf et al 2006).…”

Development of inflammatory bowel disease patient education and medical information sheets: serving an unmet need

“…Health literacy, defined as the ‘combination of personal competencies and situational resources needed for people to access, understand, appraise and use information services’ 4 is needed to make health decisions. Limited health literacy in patients with IBD has been associated with depression, greater clinical disease activity, and overall worsened health status and health‐related quality of life 5,6 . Enhancing health literacy may subsequently lead to improved healthcare outcomes through improving self‐efficacy, promoting timely and effective healthcare utilisation and prevention services 7 .…”

“…Limited health literacy in patients with IBD has been associated with depression, greater clinical disease activity, and overall worsened health status and healthrelated quality of life. 5,6 Enhancing health literacy may subsequently lead to improved healthcare outcomes through improving self-efficacy, promoting timely and effective healthcare utilisation and prevention services. 7 This may, in turn, reduce healthcare burden, 8 since higher health literacy is associated with improved use of preventative healthcare and screening behaviours such as vaccination and colon cancer screening.…”

Health Literacy in Multiple Sclerosis patients: A Concept Analysis Using the Evolutionary Method

“…12 In the study of Tormey et al, health literacy conceptualized into different sectors including basic literacy, academic literacy, civil literacy and cultural literacy. 13 Health literacy helps patients to overcome many problems and symptoms and as a result can advocate patient in a right manner and quality of life. 14,15 Although health literacy has been seen as an important factor in chronic diseases, little attention has been paid to it, and the number of research done in the field has been limited.…”