Functional Health Literacy

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In Chapter 13, The Author discuss the problem of health literacy in United States and its effects in health care out come. Author has defines the Health Literacy as the degree to which an individual has to capacity to obtain, communicate, process and, understand basic health information and services to make appropriate decision. On the other hand the organization health literacy is their capabilities to overcome barriers of health literacy. In a health survey only few patients (12-15%) were found at proficient level of the health literacy and more than 50% patients falls in moderate level. Data of health literacy shows that it is a big problem that has to be worked to achieve healthcare out come. Author has discussed the advantages of the functional health literacy in patients because it helps patients to understand basic medical terminology used by the physicians, increase adherence and self management behavior and more likely to receive quality medical care. Functional Health literacy increase the participation of the patients in preventive health care. …show more content…

Individual-level barrier of health literacy includes the individual characteristics like age , language, education and the socioeconomic background of the patient, complexity of illness and treatment and prior experience and exposure of the health care system. Educated patients who has not been aware of the heath care system also found difficulties in filling healthcare forms and the other documents. We have seen the best example of the patient, who has not aware of signing the documents and gave consent for surgery. Patients find it difficult to follow the providers instruction and not aware of the basic terminology. Reading , writing and calculation of basic math is considered as the minimum literacy requirement to understand and use healthcare

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