Health Literacy: Issues and Strategies
The article was shared by writing elites https://elitewritings.com/ Health literacy is one of the primary issues in the health care system today. The problem is that most patients experience considerable difficulties with understanding and interpreting information. Schwartzenberg and VanGeest confirm that approximately 90 million Americans cannot understand health information and use it to improve their health. Huff suggests that 80 percent of all patients admitted to hospitals have low levels of literacy. Really, most Americans read at the 8th grade level, whereas almost all health education materials are designed for 10th grade readers. Therefore, nurses use a variety of strategies to improve the state of affairs. Such strategies vary, depending on the situation. Schwartzenberg and VanGeest report using printed materials, simple language, or speaking more slowly with patients. Also, Huff writes that avoiding jargon is one of the best ways to improve communication between nurses and patients. Nurses may also ask questions or simplify signage. In all these strategies, the role of nurses is crucial.
Nurses' Role in Improving Health Literacy
Nurses should be the first to respond to the emerging call for better health literacy in patients. They are expected to play one of the critical roles in health literacy analysis and patient education. Nurses act as the chief intermediaries in the relationship between patients and physicians, and it is not surprising that patients seek to understand challenging health information with the help of nurses. Simultaneously, "nurses have a professional and ethical obligation to communicate in a clear, purposeful way that addresses the unique information needs of each patient". Still, patients should have enough opportunities to improve their health literacy and find credible information, when quality nursing care is unavailable.
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, offers detailed recommendations for finding and evaluating the quality of online health resources. The resource can be found at http://nccam.nih.gov/health/webresources. I think it is beneficial to patients because it enables and empowers them to consider the credibility and effectiveness of the rich health information they find online. As McGonigle and Mastrian write, consumers in the knowledge era want to know more. Unfortunately, with the growing amount of information resources, distinguish among reliable and unreliable sources becomes particularly difficult.
Self-Diagnosis, Online Resources, and Best Practices
As a result, many patients make serious mistakes as they try to self-diagnose with the help of low-quality online information resources. For many of them, online self-diagnosis experiences translate into higher levels of anxiety and unreasonable behaviors. Many others experience confusion about the information they see and read online. As a nurse, I saw a few patients who delayed their visit to physicians because the online resources they used for self-diagnosis did not provide any relevant information about their health. Consequently, they had a strong belief that they had no health problems or that their problems were not serious enough to visit a physician.
I believe that communication is the best way of improving the levels of health literacy in patients. As a nurse, I possess rich health information, but my task is to transform it into a set of comprehensive data, which will make it easier for the patient to develop relevant and reasonable health decisions. Also, I think that it is worth organizing group discussions and forums with patients, so that they improve their understanding of the most problematic diseases. At the same time, nurses must be ready to answer questions and assist patients in their information processing attempts. With the growing availability of Internet resources devoted to health, nurses will have to become more technology-oriented. They will have to be ready to help patients with their choice of the most credible online information.