Health Literacy in the Elderly
Abstract
More than half of the United States’ elderly population is unable to meet their own health care demands. This includes preventative services, reading prescription bottles, communicating effectively with health care providers, and having positive health outcomes in the face of chronic disease. The failure to meet these needs is related to low health literacy, or the lack of social and cognitive skill sets to understand information provided to them or seek out new services. Low health literacy places an unfortunate health risk on the patient and a financial risk on the health care system. Nursing is obligated as a health care provider to identify patients with limited health literacy and provide unique communication of education. As a profession, nursing should also be empowered to reduce cost to health care and adjust change to nursing curricula to include health literacy concepts. Health Literacy of the Elderly Health literacy has varied definitions that are dependent on the organization or discipline for which the discourse is occurring. A collaboration of definitions of health literacy is the ability to employ reading and math skills to function in health related activities, the social and cognitive capacity to obtain and understand the health information as it is provided to them, the ability to seek out medical services, and the sense to maintain good health (Speros, 2005, p. 635). There is not one agreed upon definition of this concept by any one agency or discipline. This serves to affirm what Speros (2005, pp. 633-634) acclaimed to be true: since health literacy is a new concept over the last two decades, the clear definition of it and ownership with subsequent accountability should belong to nursing. This is again confirmed as nursing is held accountable as healthcare providers lacking in proficiently teaching their patients as assessed via The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Clinician and Group
More than half of the United States’ elderly population is unable to meet their own health care demands. This includes preventative services, reading prescription bottles, communicating effectively with health care providers, and having positive health outcomes in the face of chronic disease. The failure to meet these needs is related to low health literacy, or the lack of social and cognitive skill sets to understand information provided to them or seek out new services. Low health literacy places an unfortunate health risk on the patient and a financial risk on the health care system. Nursing is obligated as a health care provider to identify patients with limited health literacy and provide unique communication of education. As a profession, nursing should also be empowered to reduce cost to health care and adjust change to nursing curricula to include health literacy concepts. Health Literacy of the Elderly Health literacy has varied definitions that are dependent on the organization or discipline for which the discourse is occurring. A collaboration of definitions of health literacy is the ability to employ reading and math skills to function in health related activities, the social and cognitive capacity to obtain and understand the health information as it is provided to them, the ability to seek out medical services, and the sense to maintain good health (Speros, 2005, p. 635). There is not one agreed upon definition of this concept by any one agency or discipline. This serves to affirm what Speros (2005, pp. 633-634) acclaimed to be true: since health literacy is a new concept over the last two decades, the clear definition of it and ownership with subsequent accountability should belong to nursing. This is again confirmed as nursing is held accountable as healthcare providers lacking in proficiently teaching their patients as assessed via The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Clinician and Group
References: Speros, C. (2005). Health literacy: Concept analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 50(6), 633-640. Weidmer, B.A., Brach, C., & Hays, R.D. (2012). Development and evaluation of CAHPS survey items assessing how well healthcare providers address health literacy. Medical Care, 50(9), 3-11.