Heuristic assessment of health literacy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Heuristic assessment of health literacy in a community pharmacy medicine consultation
IRAS ID
182986
Contact name
Paul B Duell
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East Anglia
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 26 days
Research summary
Many patients do not take their medicines as their doctor intended. In order for patients to make an informed choice on whether to take their medicines they need to consider the risks and benefits associated with the medication. This can be very difficult for patients that do not have adequate health literacy skills. Research in the United States indicates that approximately a third of Americans have low health literacy skills. There is limited evidence in the UK to support tailoring health information to health literacy needs of individual. This study will investigate how pharmacists can assess health literacy during a conversation with a patient about their medicines and use this information to tailor advice.
Research indicates that there may be consistent indicators of lower health literacy for example, patients not asking questions and not using medical terminology. It may therefore be feasible for these indicators to be used by pharmacists to alter communication accordingly during medicine related consultations. The proposed project will investigate potential indicators of low health literacy in a population diagnosed with hypertension.
Aim
To identify an approach to accurately determine a patient’s level of health literacy during a medicine related consultation.Objectives
• To identify key questions and approaches which could be used to predict levels of health literacy.
• To identify common markers or behaviours used by pharmacists to make judgements regarding health literacy and determine which are most likely to be effective.Pharmacists will after each consultation give record their assessment of the patient’s health literacy level and explain their decision making process. The patient’s will also have their health literacy measured using the Newest Vital Sign health literacy instrument by a member of staff and the results compared. Statistical analysis will be used to identify which items are the best predictors of health literacy ability.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EE/0238
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion