By: Swana Thomas, PharmD, MPH 2018
Published in the Pharmacy Times
2016-08-09<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A patient walks into your pharmacy to pick up a new medication. You ask whether she has any questions, and she timidly shakes her head to say no. She thanks you and walks away, but right before turning the corner, she reads the prescription and runs back because she realizes she doesn\u2019t know anything about the medication.
Being the medication expert, you provide her with counseling points, and since she\u2019s interested in supplemental reading, you print out further information before sending her on her way. You hope the literature will help her, encourage compliance, and ultimately improve her health status. However, you must have wondered at some point: do all patients understand what you hand out to them? The truth is, most don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US Department of Health and Human Services defines health literacy as \u201cthe degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.\u201d Basically, it\u2019s the ability to understand health literature provided by medical professionals in order to make educated, confident health decisions. \u201cDiabetes\u201d is the word to read aloud, \u201csugar\u201d is the key, and \u201csalt\u201d is the distractor. For most of you, this association exercise wasn\u2019t difficult. For more than 35% of Americans, however, it would take more than mere minutes to complete. What makes medical pamphlets more difficult is the verbiage used could be categorized as requiring intermediate to proficient health literacy, meaning they could be \u201cdifficult\u201d or \u201cextremely challenging\u201d to comprehend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why Pharmacists Should Be Aware of Health Literacy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How Pharmacists Can Help<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n a. \u201cWhat is my main problem?\u201d Source<\/strong>: https:\/\/www.pharmacytimes.com\/contributor\/swana-thomas-pharmd-mph-candidate-2018\/2016\/08\/health-literacy-in-the-pharmacy Comment<\/strong>: By: Swana Thomas, PharmD, MPH 2018Published in the Pharmacy Times2016-08-09 A patient walks into your pharmacy to pick up a new medication. You ask whether she has any questions, and she timidly shakes her head to say no. She thanks you and walks away, but right before turning the corner, she reads the prescription and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":6480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science-innovation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6485,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions\/6485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Self-Assessment<\/strong>
Let\u2019s put your health literacy to the test! Below, there are 3 lines, each with 3 words. Read the first word aloud, then determine which of the next 2 words is either the \u201cdistractor\u201d or the \u201ckey\u201d to the first word. The \u201ckey\u201d is the word most likely to be associated with the first word. The \u201cdistractor\u201d is the word least likely to be associated with the first word.
Here\u2019s an example:
\u00b7 Diabetes: sugar\/salt<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, you try! The answers are listed at the bottom of the article:
\u00b7 Medications: instrument\/treatment
\u00b7 Constipation: blocked\/loose
\u00b7 Syphilis: condom\/contraception<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Health literacy is broken into 4 categories: below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient. About 35% of Americans fall into the below basic to basic category (eg, a K- to 6th-grade reading level), which means they can only read and follow a set of directions from their prescriber or read a brochure on Zostavax and then iterate what the vaccination is indicated for.
About 53% of Americans are intermediately health literate (eg, a 7th- to 8th-grade reading level). They can read a prescription label for a medication to be taken twice daily and deduce when to take the drug without being told it\u2019s taken approximately 12 hours apart. The remaining Americans are considered proficient (eg, a reading level of high school and above), which means they can do more algebraic calculations and comprehend the use of common medical jargon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
b. \u201cWhat do I need to do?\u201d
c. \u201cWhy is this important for me to do?\u201d
Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop once said, \u201cThere are all kinds of things [we] can do to marry literacy with health.\u201d Many initiatives underway acknowledge the need for improved health literacy in the pharmacy. How will you join in the efforts?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Image<\/strong>: https:\/\/blogs.webmd.com\/public-health\/20190705\/why-you-should-let-your-pharmacist-counsel-you-on-medications<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of this article is to address the umbrella issue of pharmaceutical literacy which is the literacy proficiency, or lack of, amongst patients. As provided there is a sample assessment that can be used to acknowledge if an individual can successfully comprehend a prescription label. Based upon the results, statistics have shown that 53% of Americans are at an intermediate<\/em> level of proficiency which encompasses an understanding to take medicine twice daily and when to take the next dosage. As concluded, what makes such existent labels difficult to understand is the use of verbiage and medical jargon that one of a higher level of proficiency may understand. Suggested steps to help improve ALL Americans understanding is simplifying the listed instructions for a lower literacy rate and also ensure patients are able to receive direct communication to acknowledge what they are taking and open such channel for questions that may rise during such conversations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"