Health literacy and adherence to the pharmacological treatment by people with arterial hypertension.
Iorana Candido da Silva, Maria Rayssa do Nascimento Nogueira, Tahissa Frota Cavalcante and 4 others
PMID 35946621WHAT IT FOUND
Among Brazilian adults with hypertension, higher ability with numbers and overall health literacy were associated with better medication adherence, while reading comprehension was not.
Ask patients to explain dosing and appointment numbers.
Key findings
0198.7% had adequate health literacy, but the median adherence score was 3, equivalent to medium adherence.
02Numeracy and total health literacy were positively associated with adherence, but reading comprehension was not.
03Elders scored 3.0 ± 1.2 and retired or subsidy recipients scored 3.0 ± 1.1 on adherence, higher than other groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used a non-probabilistic online sample recruited through social networks, so it may not represent people with hypertension who attend health services. Participants could read and reread the health literacy test for an unstandardised time, which may have produced higher literacy scores. Most participants were women (88.0%), had high school education (43.6%), lived in the Southeast (46.6%), and 98.7% had adequate health literacy, a profile unlike most Brazilian studies. The design measured health literacy and adherence at one time point, so it cannot show that one causes the other. Adherence was measured with four questionnaire items (Morisky-Green Test), and the paper does not report how medication adherence was verified outside the questionnaire.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that health literacy alone determines medication adherence. The study found associations with numeracy and total health literacy, not with reading comprehension, and it did not test whether improving literacy changes adherence.