Aspects related to health literacy, self-care and compliance with treatment of people living with HIV.
Mônica Alice Santos da Silva, Morgana Cristina Leôncio de Lima, Cynthia Angélica Ramos Oliveira Dourado and 1 others
PMID 36260775WHAT IT FOUND
Health literacy was not clearly linked to HIV treatment adherence in 303 people with HIV, but better self-care was.
Nurses can assess self-care and adherence directly, not rely on literacy alone.
Key findings
01Among 303 participants, 159 (52.5%) had satisfactory health literacy, 188 (62.9%) had excellent self-care, and 173 (57.1%) had strict compliance with antiretroviral therapy.
02Health literacy was not significantly associated with treatment compliance (p-value = 0.225).
03Self-care was associated with compliance (p-value < 0.001), and good self-care had PR = 2.23 for insufficient compliance compared with excellent self-care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that health literacy or self-care caused better treatment compliance. It included only people still attending specialised HIV services, so it did not capture people who had abandoned antiretroviral therapy. It excluded people who could not read, had severe hearing impairment, untreated psychiatric illness, or were bedridden or acutely unwell, so results may not apply to those groups. The study was done in three services in one Brazilian city, so it may not represent other regions. The main outcomes were test scores for literacy, self-care, and compliance, not viral load remission.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that raising health literacy will improve HIV treatment adherence. The study did not test an intervention, and health literacy was not significantly associated with compliance (p-value = 0.225).