8.6 Health literacy In Australia, more than half (60%) of people have low health literacy [44]. Health literacy is linked to the person’s knowledge, motivation and ability to access, and capacity to understand, weigh up and apply health and therapy information. It determines the person’s ability to make decisions in everyday life about their health care, what they can do to prevent diseases, and promote their own health to maintain or improve their quality of life, activities and participation [10]. Health literacy empowers the person to engage with their own health [20]. Personal factors such as ethnicity, language, education, age, mental health and motivation influence the person and their skills, and therefore their health literacy. Health literacy is also affected by environmental factors within the whole health system (including public, not-for-profit and private organisations), such as what health information is available, and when, how and by whom it is communicated and made accessible to the person. It is critical that the health information is not only accessible to the person, but easily understood by and applicable to them. It is also important for health professionals to be person-centred, and to recognise, adapt and facilitate the person’s engagement with their own health literacy, including screening to check on their progress (refer to Section 8.9). The multidisciplinary team working with a newly injured person must not assume that the person or their family have all the knowledge and skills they will need for making decisions related to their injury.
LC0063_Guidance_on_the_support_pathway_v10
To help the person be ‘health literate’, support can be provided to enable them to:
•
access information (seek, find and obtain health information)
•
understand the information (comprehend the information)
•
appraise the information (interpret, filter, judge and evaluate the health information)
•
apply the information (communicate and use the information to make their own decisions around maintaining and improving health) [10].
© icareTM | Insurance and Care NSW 2021
Everyone involved in the support pathway is responsible for supporting the person’s health literacy, including the multidisciplinary team, and the peer support person, advocates and funder who have contextual, expert and experiential knowledge. Best practice is to always use the ‘teach-back’ method and personcentred approaches to provide health-related information and advice, and to check the person’s understanding and ability to weigh up and apply the information. A range of resources are available for the person, organisations and the multidisciplinary team to enhance health literacy (see Resources boxes 3 and 4).
20 of 88
icare Guidance for people with a limb amputation 2021
