Characteristics of health literacy of older adults in care prevention classes: pilot study.
Rika Mangyo, Takeshi Arai
PMID 40322576WHAT IT FOUND
Older adults attending community exercise classes often said they could understand and use health advice, but many said they struggled to judge whether health information was reliable or which treatment option was better.
Key findings
01In healthcare, 74% of respondents found it easy to understand doctor information and apply it, but 64% found it difficult to appraise treatment advantages and disadvantages.
02In disease prevention, 74% found it easy to access lifestyle information, 90% found it easy to understand health warnings, 59% found it easy to apply advice, and 52% found it difficult to appraise media information.
03Across healthcare and disease prevention, many respondents found understanding and applying information easy while finding appraising information difficult.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
It was a pilot study, so it was not designed to give definitive evidence. Only 59 of 83 participants responded, and data from 58 were analyzed, so the results may not represent all class attendees. The response rate was about 70%, and participants were recruited from people attending for physical fitness measurement, which may have selected for people already interested in health. The questionnaire excluded the health promotion domain, so it did not measure all parts of the original HLS-EU-Q47. The survey did not collect enough detail about participants' characteristics or conduct follow-up investigations to explain why people found appraising information difficult.
Declared interests
This work was supported by a research fund from Mejiro University. The authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that exercise classes or health education improve health literacy. It is a pilot survey of what older adults said about their own health information skills, and it did not test any intervention.