Exploring Health Literacy Heterogeneity in Prehypertension: Tailored Intervention Strategies Based on Latent Profile Analysis.
Shengcai Zhu, Lingling Liu, Yiran Zhang and 3 others
PMID 42002844WHAT IT FOUND
Adults with prehypertension grouped into low, moderate, or high health literacy.
The low group had more people with lower education, low income, smoking, salty or meat-based diets, less exercise, and sleep deficit. This can guide education, not prove it works.
Key findings
01Three health literacy profiles were identified among 340 adults with prehypertension: low health literacy (108, 31.8%), moderate health literacy (138, 40.6%), and high health literacy (94, 27.6%).
02The low health literacy profile had the lowest mean psychological capital and health-promoting lifestyle scores, and the profiles differed significantly in education, income, smoking, diet, exercise, and sleep.
03The paper did not test whether tailored interventions improve self-management, and its cross-sectional design cannot show causal relationships.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The cross-sectional design cannot show whether health literacy profiles cause or result from behaviors. The sample came from one tertiary hospital in Nanning, China, so it may not apply to other regions or socioeconomic groups. All data were self-reported questionnaires, so social desirability and recall inaccuracies are possible. The study focused on prehypertension, so findings may not apply to severe hypertension or other chronic diseases. The authors note that comprehensive health literacy scales may be too long for busy clinical settings. The 4-profile and 5-profile models had a minimum category probability of 0.3%, so they were excluded. No intervention was tested, so the proposed stratified education strategies are not shown to work.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 72164003). The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the proposed stratified education plan as proven to lower blood pressure or improve self-management. The study only measured health literacy profiles at one time and did not test the interventions, so benefit is unknown.