Thursday, August 25, 2016

2 Health Information Literacy articles: Older Irish Adults; Systematic review

McCabe, A. and Wickham, S. (2016). Health Information Literacy among Healthy Older Irish Adults. Journal of Nursing and Care, 5, 333. http://www.omicsgroup.org/journals/health-information-literacy-among-healthy-older-irish-adults-2167-1168-1000333.php?aid=69220 (open access)
"Methods: This study utilized a validated health literacy assessment tool to profile a sample of older adults in terms of health information access and utilization... Results: Of the participants recruited 40% had limited HL. The General Practitioner (GP) was considered by 80% of participants to be the first preference for sourcing health information. While 80% of the sample had Internet access at home, only half of them used it to source health information, but that 50% had substantially higher HL scores than the other 50%. ... Conclusion: The study confirmed that a cohort of older Irish people has difficulties with HL. The finding pertaining to better HL skills in those who used the Internet to source health information is interesting and requires further research"

van‘t Jagt, R.K. et al (2016). Comprehensibility of Health-Related Documents for Older Adults with Different Levels of Health Literacy: A Systematic Review. Journal of Health Communication, 21(2), 345. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10810730.2015.1049306 (priced publication)
"A systematic review was conducted to assess the available evidence for the effectiveness of interventions aiming to improve the comprehensibility of health-related documents in older adults (≥50) with different levels of health literacy.  ... Only for narratives and multiple-feature revisions (e.g., combining revisions in textual and visual characteristics) did the included studies provide evidence that they may be effective for older adults. Using narrative formats and/or multiple-feature revisions of health-related documents seem to be promising strategies for enhancing the comprehensibility of health-related documents for older adults. The lack of consistent evidence for effective interventions stresses the importance of (a) replication and (b) the use of standardized research methodologies."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Southern Archipelago, Gothenburg, August 2016

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