Measuring adult literacy in health care: performance of the newest vital sign.
OBJECTIVE
To compare performance of the newest vital sign (NVS) with existing literacy measures.


METHODS
We administered the NVS and REALM to 129 patients, and NVS and S-TOFHLA to 119 patients all in public clinics.


RESULTS
The NVS demonstrated high sensitivity for detecting limited literacy and moderate specificity (area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUROC] curve 0.71-0.73). The NVS was less effective than the S-TOFHLA for predicting health outcomes.


CONCLUSIONS
The NVS is able to identify patients with limited literacy skills, but may misclassify those with adequate literacy according to the REALM and S-TOFHLA. NVS scores were not associated with health outcomes.
Osborn
Chandra Y
CY
Institute for Healthcare Studies, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL 60611, USA. c-osborn@northwestern.edu
Weiss
Barry D
BD
Davis
Terry C
TC
Skripkauskas
Silvia
S
Rodrigue
Christopher
C
Bass
Pat F
PF
Wolf
Michael S
MS
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006296:Health Services; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires