References
Health literacy and liver cirrhosis: testing three screening tools for face validity
Abstract
Patients who have liver cirrhosis, which is a chronic and complex disease, have to understand a lot of information, including the nature of the disease and the structure of the healthcare system. It is important for nurses to be able to tailor care to this group of patients. It can therefore be useful to know the level of patients' health literacy (HL). In general, HL is measured through self-administered questionnaires. This study investigated the face validity of three HL questionnaires with a total of 108 outpatients with liver cirrhosis. The patients were allocated to one of 6 groups, within which the questionnaires administered in a different order; the allocation to each groups was random. One-third of patients needed help to complete the questionnaires: these were mostly individuals with alcohol-related liver cirrhosis, low levels of education, who were mostly male. The order of questionnaires was found to be unimportant, as the results were similar across the 6 groups. Measuring HL in patients with liver cirrhosis is a challenge—and the findings of this study indicate that exposing patients to any questionnaire could be used as a rough screening tool.
Health literacy (HL) was defined by the World Health Organization in 1998 as: ‘The cognitive and social skills which determine the motivation and ability of individuals to gain access to, understand and use information in ways which promote and maintain good health’. Patients with liver cirrhosis, which is a chronic and complex disease, are required to understand and act on many health messages and understand the organisation of the healthcare system to enable them to act and take precautions to maintain optimal health status.
Furthermore, liver cirrhosis can lead to episodes with hepatic encephalopathy (HE). This is a debilitating manifestation of liver disease, affecting the lives of patients and their relatives (Bager, 2017) that will vary between patients and within an individual over time. If liver cirrhosis is accompanied by HE, patients' ability to understand and act appropriately on health issues will be impaired. When developing disease-related material for patients with liver cirrhosis, it is therefore vital to take into account individual patients' different levels of HL. Consequently, it is imperative for nurses providing information to patients to understand a patient's level of HL.
Register now to continue reading
Thank you for visiting British Journal of Nursing and reading some of our peer-reviewed resources for nurses. To read more, please register today. You’ll enjoy the following great benefits:
What's included
-
Limited access to clinical or professional articles
-
Unlimited access to the latest news, blogs and video content