Health Literacy

Health literacy is the ability of an individual or a community to obtain, read, understand and use healthcare information and services appropriately.

It assists people in managing long-term health conditions, participating in preventive programs, making healthy lifestyle choices, and maintaining medication regimens.

It also helps to make informed healthcare decisions and actions.

Low health literacy is a significant problem causing an increased number of casualty visits, hospital admissions, and readmissions.

Many individuals face difficulty understanding health information due to the usage of complex medical terminology and also because of the emotional challenges caused by a severe health condition requiring complicated self-care.

To overcome these issues, healthcare professionals should take the following steps.

First, assess the learner's health literacy level to plan teaching strategies accordingly.

Second, develop a therapeutic connection—people with inadequate health literacy or learning disabilities may be embarrassed about their inability to understand and pretend that they have understood.

Lastly, assess for the presence of any learning disabilities and identify the learners' special needs.