Can this patient read and understand written health information?
Date
2010-07
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Abstract
Context
Patients with limited literacy are at higher risk for poor health outcomes; however, physicians' perceptions are inaccurate for identifying these patients.Objective
To systematically review the accuracy of brief instruments for identifying patients with limited literacy.Data sources
Search of the English-language literature from 1969 through February 2010 using PubMed, Psychinfo, and bibliographies of selected manuscripts for articles on health literacy, numeracy, reading ability, and reading skill.Study selection
Prospective studies including adult patients 18 years or older that evaluated a brief instrument for identifying limited literacy in a health care setting compared with an accepted literacy reference standard.Data extraction
Studies were evaluated independently by 2 reviewers who each abstracted information and assigned an overall quality rating. Disagreements were adjudicated by a third reviewer.Data synthesis
Ten studies using 6 different instruments met inclusion criteria. Among multi-item measures, the Newest Vital Sign (English) performed moderately well for identifying limited literacy based on 3 studies. Among the single-item questions, asking about a patient's use of a surrogate reader, confidence filling out medical forms, and self-rated reading ability performed moderately well in identifying patients with inadequate or marginal literacy. Asking a patient, "How confident are you in filling out medical forms by yourself?" is associated with a summary likelihood ratio (LR) for limited literacy of 5.0 (95% confidence interval [CI], 3.8-6.4) for an answer of "a little confident" or "not at all confident"; a summary LR of 2.2 (95% CI, 1.5-3.3) for "somewhat confident"; and a summary LR of 0.44 (95% CI, 0.24-0.82) for "quite a bit" or "extremely confident."Conclusion
Several single-item questions, including use of a surrogate reader and confidence with medical forms, were moderately effective for quickly identifying patients with limited literacy.Type
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Powers, Benjamin J, Jane V Trinh and Hayden B Bosworth (2010). Can this patient read and understand written health information?. JAMA, 304(1). pp. 76–84. 10.1001/jama.2010.896 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/23939.
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Scholars@Duke
Jane Vy Trinh
quality improvement, resident education, chronic disease management
Hayden Barry Bosworth
Dr. Bosworth is a health services researcher and Deputy Director of the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) at the Durham VA Medical Center. He is also Vice Chair of Education and Professor of Population Health Sciences. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nursing at Duke University Medical Center and Adjunct Professor in Health Policy and Administration at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests comprise three overarching areas of research: 1) clinical research that provides knowledge for improving patients’ treatment adherence and self-management in chronic care; 2) translation research to improve access to quality of care; and 3) eliminate health care disparities.
Dr. Bosworth is the recipient of an American Heart Association established investigator award, the 2013 VA Undersecretary Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health Services Research (The annual award is the highest honor for VA health services researchers), and a VA Senior Career Scientist Award. In terms of self-management, Dr. Bosworth has expertise developing interventions to improve health behaviors related to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and depression, and has been developing and implementing tailored patient interventions to reduce the burden of other chronic diseases. These trials focus on motivating individuals to initiate health behaviors and sustaining them long term and use members of the healthcare team, particularly pharmacists and nurses. He has been the Principal Investigator of over 30 trials resulting in over 400 peer reviewed publications and four books. This work has been or is being implemented in multiple arenas including Medicaid of North Carolina, private payers, The United Kingdom National Health System Direct, Kaiser Health care system, and the Veterans Affairs.
Areas of Expertise: Health Behavior, Health Services Research, Implementation Science, Health Measurement, and Health Policy
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