Nurse Overestimation of Patients' Health Literacy

Patient education and effective communication are core elements of the nursing profession; therefore, awareness of a patient's health literacy is integral to patient care, safety, education, and counseling. Several past studies have suggested that health care providers overestimate their patien...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of health communication Vol. 18; no. sup1; pp. 62 - 69
Main Authors Dickens, Carolyn, Lambert, Bruce L., Cromwell, Terese, Piano, Mariann R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Taylor & Francis Group 04.12.2013
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis
Subjects
Adult
Aged
Attitude of Health Personnel
Communication
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Health education
Health Literacy - statistics & numerical data
Humans
Literacy
Male
Middle Aged
Nurses
Nursing Evaluation Research
Nursing Staff, Hospital - psychology
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Patient education and effective communication are core elements of the nursing profession; therefore, awareness of a patient's health literacy is integral to patient care, safety, education, and counseling. Several past studies have suggested that health care providers overestimate their patient's health literacy. In this study, the authors compare inpatient nurses' estimate of their patient's health literacy to the patient's health literacy using Newest Vital Sign as the health literacy measurement. A total of 65 patients and 30 nurses were enrolled in this trial. The results demonstrate that nurses incorrectly identify patients with low health literacy. In addition, overestimates outnumber underestimates 6 to 1. The results reinforce previous evidence that health care providers overestimate a patient's health literacy. The overestimation of a patient's health literacy by nursing personnel may contribute to the widespread problem of poor health outcomes and hospital readmission rates.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
The authors thank Mike Wolf, Ph.D., and Stacy Bailey, Ph.D., for their advice and expertise.
This project was supported by grant number U194S021093 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
ISSN:1081-0730
1087-0415
DOI:10.1080/10810730.2013.825670