A CHAT about health literacy - a qualitative feasibility study of the Conversational Health Literacy Assessment Tool (CHAT) in a Danish municipal healthcare centre.
Nanna Husted Jensen, Anna Aaby, Knud Ryom and 1 others
PMID 33314213WHAT IT FOUND
Clinicians using CHAT health literacy conversations in a Danish rehabilitation service said they spotted overlooked health literacy needs, but lacked services to act on them.
Key findings
01All participating healthcare providers had used CHAT in more than ten start-up sessions each before the interviews.
02Providers reported that CHAT made health literacy assessment more structured and helped identify overlooked vulnerabilities in patients who seemed to have adequate health literacy.
03Providers found it difficult to act on identified needs because they lacked relevant services and tools.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study interviewed healthcare providers, not patients, so it does not show what patients experienced or whether CHAT improved their health literacy or care. It was a feasibility study in one Danish municipality, with 11 providers in 4 small focus groups, so it cannot show that CHAT works in other settings. CHAT was introduced through workshops and was part of a broader health literacy responsiveness programme, so the contribution of CHAT alone cannot be separated from training and local adaptation. The researchers served as implementation agents and evaluators, which may have biased the results toward a positive evaluation. The analysis used a deductive RE-AIM framework, so some explorative qualitative themes may not have been captured.
Declared interests
No external funding was received, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that CHAT improves patient health literacy or care outcomes. The study reports providers' experiences in one Danish rehabilitation setting, did not measure patient outcomes, and CHAT was used after workshops and local adaptation.