Critique: Health Care Provider and Patient Education Pamphlet

Health promotion brochure should be written at an appropriate grade level for the consumer to understand. According to Helmig (2006) The familiar brochures, tent-cards, checklists, posters, and newsletter, and mainstays of physicians’ offices and waiting rooms serve as important resources for patients, but they often do not speak to patients in a language they can understand ( p 82). The readability of this brochure according to SMOG is at a 10th grade level. Research shows that more than 20% of adults read below the fifth grade level. Examples in the brochure that would be difficult for the consumer to understand is under the heading “About your Diabetes.” This information is confusing and need more clarification to help the consumer understand and interpret the information that is given. According to Safeer & Keenan (2005), health literacy is basic reading that allows a person to function in the health care environment. The authors’ also stated elderly consumers are predominantly affected because of their reading and comprehension abilities are influenced by their vision and hearing status (p. 463).

Health literacy has been demarcated as the measurement of the individual’s capacity to obtain, understand and process simple health information. It is needed to make satisfactory health decisions and determine services needed to treat or prevent illness. Health literacy requires knowledge from many topics, comprising the patient’s own body, appropriate conducts towards healthy results and the difficulties to understand the health system. It is influenced by many conditions such as our communication skills, age, socio-economic status, and cultural background, past experiences, educational level and mental health status (U.S. Department of

Low literacy affects many individuals within today’s society. The amount of individuals that are unable to comprehend medication labels, medication regimens, and learning points from discharge teaching is shocking and result in further health related injuries (Koh et al., 2012). Nurses must take the important task of recognizing an individual literacy and comprehension ability before planning the individual’s care plan. The nurse must find out the ways an individual can receive information that

Health literacy has been a problem with our patients. The most vulnerable populations are the elderly, people with low-income levels, those with limited education, non-native speakers of English, those with chronic mental and physical health conditions, minority, and immigrant populations. Nurses have a great role in helping our patients succeed in understanding their health conditions. Nurses can be of great help in promoting health literacy. Sykes, Wills, Rowlands and Popple (2013) defined health literacy as the ability of individuals to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information. The three domains of health literacy, according to Bennett and Perkins (2012) as adapted from the (WHO) (1998) are functional health literacy, interactive literacy, and critical health literacy. Functional health literacy is basic reading and writing skills to be able to function effectively in a health context. Interactive health literacy is the used of more advanced cognitive and literacy skills to participate in health care. Critical health literacy is the ability to analyze critically and to use information to participate in action, to overcome structural barriers to health (p.14). The U.S. Department of Education published the findings of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy conducted in 2003. The result showed that 36 % of adults have basic or below-basic skills for dealing with health material, 52 %

A big problem today in health care for many people is health literacy. Health literacy is when a person is able to understand and process medical information they are given. Having low health literacy can affect how a person understands, and uses information about their health and health services (Batterham 2016). Low health literacy rates lead to big issues in communication. Limited literacy impacts health behaviors, decisions, and ultimately outcomes. Many people have low health literacy which leads to bad health outcomes. Research shows that low literacy is linked with the lower likelihood of people being able to manage their own health conditions, and less access to health care services which can lead to poor health outcomes. There are many reasons people have low health literacy, A lack of formal education and poor reading ability aren't the only causes of low health literacy. Low health literacy is associated with a number of things like poor engagement in health services, health knowledge, and overall health status. People with low health literacy may feel ashamed and try to hide it from professionals and family members. Most health care professionals are unaware of the level of health literacy their patient has. (Greenhalgh 2015) There is a need to identify individual health literacy needs and address how to work on solutions to benefit them and whole groups of people. Differences in health literacy

Endometriosis is an abnormal growth of endometrial cells it is most commonly found in the organs of the pelvis. Endometrial tissue is shed during each month during menstruation. Rarely endometriosis can occur outside of the pelvis. The surrounding tissue can become irritated and eventually be scrapping scar tissue and adhesions. Bands of fibrous tissue can cause tissues and organs stick to each other. Though the exact cause has never been identified, endometriosis is more common in women who experience infertility than in fertile women. There might be a couple of explanations such to why endometriosis occurs such as retrograde menstruation. Retrograde menstruation is blood that contains endometrial cells that flow back through the fallopian tubes and also into the pelvic cavity

This objective allows learners to know that they will be given tools to assess a patient’s health literacy as well as tools to create individual education plans specific to each patient’s need. The second objective states that staff will be able to assess a patient's learning style and incorporate those kinds of activities in their teaching of each patient. This learning objective sets the learner up for receiving instruction on how to assess a patient’s learning style and how to apply that knowledge to how to teach their patient. These objectives give the staff the tools to properly and adequately teach patients in a way that they can understand and apply what they have learned without fear of

Sequist, Cullen, and Acton explain, “American Indians have nearly three times the national unemployment rate, and are less than half as likely to graduate from college” (2011, pp. 1967). With the low education levels that are common amongst this racial group, health care facilities need to make sure they are providing materials and teachings with appropriate fundamental literacy levels. In the book Advancing Health Literacy written by Zarcadoolas, Pleasant, and Greer, the authors describe fundamental literacy as, “The ability to read, write, speak, and work with numbers” (2006, pp. 56-57). As nurses, we need to be aware of others’ fundamental literacy to provide them with a sense of autonomy. If they are able to understand the materials they are reading, then they are able to make confident decisions about their care. In the nursing field, we provide many informational brochures, and are responsible for making sure our patients understand the plan of care. The text provided for our clients should be at an eighth-grade level, or personalized to each patient’s level. Nurses need to make sure they are conversing and explaining with no medical jargon, and allowing time for questions from the

The purpose of effective communication in healthcare is to provide first-class medical care, minimal to no medical errors and have precision; and without it there is room for medical errors, poor patient care and an ineffective team that produces undesired outcome. In the professional and patient relationship, the lack of good communication causes the patient to be apprehensive in asking questions, to worry about being bothersome because they feel other patients are sicker, and there is an assumption that the patient does not have any concerns. There are barriers to communication that include only one between the sender and receiver of the message understands the message, cultural differences, and lack of education. In sending the message it is essential that the message is received with clarity, it is concise and complete. If the patient has a language barrier, it can be masked by the patient not responding to information and it is detected as a result of poor or no compliance. In literacy concerns, all information should be presented on a 5th grade level to aid in the comprehension of the information. The care of the patient should be patient/family centered which helps in detecting any language, cultural or literacy barriers (Schyve, 2007). For example, a 46 year old single male patient that is functionally literate is admitted with a diagnosis of acute angina. During the

Literacy is the ability to read and write, and it is based on different competency of individuals. Health literacy is a term that has been used in health literature for more than 35 years. In the United States, health literacy is used to explicate and describe the correlation between patient literacy levels and their ability to adhere with prescribed therapeutic regimens (Ad Hoc Committee on Health Literacy, 1999). Likewise, health literacy is also defined as the grade to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions (IOM, 2004) (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2000). Health literacy is also influenced by individual literacy skills and individual capacities (Baker, Gazmararian, Sudano & Patterson, 2000). This study is important due to the high number of patients with difficulty interpreting and understanding common prescription drug labelled instructions. It can be inferred that

“Health Literacy” a term to define literacy in healthcare. “An estimated 90 million people in the U.S. have difficulties understanding and using health information” (Hawkins, Kantayya and Sharkey-Asner, 2010). Low health literacy poses public health risks due to groups of people not being able to adequately care for themselves and stay healthy. This paper argues the importance of literacy as it pertains to health and also explores the various types of literacy that can impact how health information is received and understood from the general public.

Endometriosis is a common but often underdiagnosed disease in women during active reproductive years of 25 to 35 years. Endometriosis is an estrogen dependent chronic pelvic disorder that can cause severe pain and adversely affect fertility. Endometriosis is described as the occurrence of endometrial glands and connective tissue called stroma in the extra uterine mucosa located throughout the pelvis (Solnik, 2015). Therefore, as Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) accurately diagnoses this disease, this patient population can increase the awareness become educated about endometriosis treatment options.

Infertility and ovarian cancer are very serious problems that can be developed in women with endometriosis. Infertility is the main problem associated with endometriosis. It can be a major setback for seemingly healthy couples that want to start a family. “Endometriosis is associated with infertility in 30-40% of sufferers (World Endometriosis, 2011)” “The presence of endometriosis may involve masses of tissue or scarring (adhesions) within the pelvis that may distort normal anatomical structures, such as Fallopian tubes, which transport the eggs from the ovaries. Alternatively, endometriosis may affect fertility through the production of hormones and other substances that have a negative effect on ovulation, fertilization of the egg, and/or implantation of the embryo” (MedicineNet, 2013). Although

Health literacy can be estimated through, Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) and the Test of Functional Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA). Even so, Andrew pleasant and Shyama Kuruvilla, 2008, argues that none of these make sense of an appropriate measurement of health literacy. The Test of Functional literacy in adults only concentrates on individual capacity to read the medical information on some medical slips and labels. Rather than there are lots of research works done on the topic of health literacy and its approach in public health, which provides best examples along with good information and major skills.

Health literacy is both a consumer and public healthcare issue. As a health care provider, it is not only my responsibility to ensure that you understand your health and what is going on