title: Toward a Better Understanding of Patient Health Literacy: A Focus on the Skills Patients Need to Find Health Information.
abstract: While many health literacy assessments exist, this area of research lacks an instrument that isolates and reflects the four components driving this concept (abilities to find, understand, use, and communicate about health information). The purpose of this study was to determine what abilities comprise the first component, how a patient finds health information. Low ( n = 13) and adequate ( n = 14) health literacy patients, and health professionals ( n = 10) described their experiences when looking for health information and the skills they employed to complete these tasks. Major skills/themes elicited included knowing when to search, credibility assessments, finding text and numerical information, interpersonal seeking, technology and online search, and spatial navigation. Findings from this study suggest that each of the dimensions included in the definition of health literacy warrants specific attention and assessment. Given identification of the skills comprising each dimension, interventions targeting deficits across health literacy dimensions could be developed to improve patient health.
authors.affiliation: 1 University of North Texas, Mayborn School of Journalism, Denton, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Champlin
authors.affiliation: 2 The University of Texas at Austin, Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, Austin, Texas, USA.|3 The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Health Communication, Austin, Texas, USA.|4 The University of Texas at Austin, School of Public Health Regional Campus.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mackert
authors.affiliation: 3 The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Health Communication, Austin, Texas, USA.|5 The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Communication Studies, Austin, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Glowacki
authors.affiliation: 3 The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Health Communication, Austin, Texas, USA.|5 The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Communication Studies, Austin, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Erin E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Donovan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054626:Consumer Health Information / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D004522:Educational Status; D057220:Health Literacy; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D020407:Internet; D008875:Middle Aged
keywords: communication; health information; health literacy; health seeking; information seeking; measurement; qualitative interviews; skills; southwestern United States