Lec 4 Health literacy Flashcards
What is literacy and health literacy?
Literacy- written and oral language people use in their everyday life and work
Health literacy- degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions
What are people with poor health literacy less likely to do?
- Use prevention services (such as screening)
- Be knowledgeable of their illness, treatment and medicines
- Manage their long-term/ chronic condition
What are people with poor health literacy more likely to do?
- Be hospitalised due to a chronic condition
- Use emergency services
- Suffer a workplace injury, because they do not understand safety precaution messages
What do we expect patients to do to monitor and manage their own health?
- Notice and be able to accurately describe changes in symptoms
- Seek appropriate help when needed
- Use devices such as blood pressure monitors and blood glucose meters and understand what the results mean and make dietary and sometimes insulin dose adjustments accordingly
How do we expect patients to manage their own medications?
- Know what to do if they miss a dose of a tablet
- Count pills, measure liquid doses
- Calculate how long their medication will last and organise a new prescription or collect a repeat when required
- use clocks and calenders to ensure that medications are taken correctly and work out dose intervals
How do we expect patients to read and interpret spoken and written information?
- Labels and information leaflets including different names of medicines
- Dosage instructions
- Listen to, understand and remember important health related explanations and directions
- Give accurate information to pharmacy staff about medical problems, symptoms and other health related issues
What does non adherence lead to?
- increase emergency department costs
- > reduce ability to self-manage conditions
- > reduce engagement with care plan/ health care system
What can pharmacists do to help people with poor health literacy?
- Having an awareness of the barriers faced by people with low literacy and health literacy to navigating the NZ health system
- Adopt and attitude of helpfulness- willing to adapt to practices
- Being an advocate for patients with low health literacy
- Establish rapport with customers/patients
- Aware of signs that may indicate low health literacy
- Using the Universal Precautions Approach with all patients
What is the Universal precautions approach?
- specific actions that minimise risk for everyone when it is unclear which patients may be affected
- structuring patient interactions to minimise the risk that any patient will not understand the health information they are given
- allow patients to make informed decisions about their health care
How do you apply the Universal precautions approach?
- Use plain language
- Don’t give too much information
- Focus on “need to know” and “need to do” (3-5 points
- Repeat and summarise
- Use specific examples that are relevant to that patient
- Use diagrams, models, analogies and demonstrations to explain concepts or complex instructions
- Search out useful resources to use from sources like PHARMAC, Asthma foundation, public health offices
How do you provide educational materials?
- Do not assume that patients read materials given to them
- Use together with spoken instruction
- Use to facilitate discussion, not replace it
- Personalise and circle/highlight important information, discuss how it relates to the patient’s care
What are the Ask Me 3 questions?
- What is my main problem?
- What do I need to do?
- Why is it important for me to do this?
How to summarise
- Use plain language
- Limit info
- be specific and concrete, not general
- demonstrate, draw pictures, use models
- repeat and summarize
- encourage questions
- use teach-back to confirm understanding
- be positive and empowering
