Health literacy is one of the integral parts of healthcare and it helps an individual to access as well as use all the health related information as per the requirement. It is a cognitive multidimensional concept that determines the ability of individuals to understand the health information (Batterham et al. 2016). Being a literate person does not mean that he/she might have much literacy about health related data. Even, having short knowledge about health information might not be helpful for any patient. In this purpose, health literacy program is extremely helpful to promote as well as to maintain a good health and it is developed through organised health education (Nutbeam 2015). A proper health literacy program is implemented on the basis of some principles. Thus, health literacy design principles are essential while implementing the health literacy program. According to the health literacy design principles it is the first step to consider the accessibility of the patient. Importance of health literacy for public health is becoming increasingly evident (Beauchamp et al. 2015). Considering the condition and location of the patient the health literacy idea is generally chosen. It is also checked if the health literacy program can be repeatedly accessed as per the necessity of the patient. If a person is capable to access the health literacy idea whenever required, then only it will get the success. Most importantly, the program is arranged as per the health need of the patient so that it can be helpful to understand the information related to the particular health need of the patient. Finally, it is also checked if the outcome of the health literacy program is achieving the goal or not. The development of instruments and other tools to assess individuals’ health literacy level is also found in many researches (Kowalski et al. 2015). Before choosing the appropriate health literacy idea, all these factors are checked so that it can be successful enough in addressing the particular health need of the patient.
In this case, Fiona is a 76 year old lady and after the death of her husband she is living alone. However, she lives in a beautiful place but that is far away from the city and even the hospital and other services are also far away from her house. She also does not feel comfortable in visiting doctors regularly. But, she suffers from pain due to arthritis and as her father lost his mobility and speech during 70s due to stroke, Fiona also fears about this and does not want to be dependent. She was not having any idea about the cause of stroke. Considering this fact, a health literacy program sing a video based educational strategy has been chosen for her case which will describe the causes and facts of stroke thoroughly so that she can overcome her fear. In this program she will also be able to know about some useful exercises that will help her in the pain of arthritis.
This presentation would be a successful intervention as it will be cost effective and the patient will be able to access the video anytime comfortably sitting at her home. She will not require going anywhere. This video is aimed to provide her a brief education about the causes of stroke and precaution along with some exercise techniques. Patient will find it interesting as it will be an image and chart based video. The idea of designing the resource also helped me to understand the need of health literacy in addressing health issues.
References
Batterham, R.W., Hawkins, M., Collins, P.A., Buchbinder, R. and Osborne, R.H., 2016. Health literacy: applying current concepts to improve health services and reduce health inequalities. Public Health, 132, pp.3-12.
Beauchamp, A., Buchbinder, R., Dodson, S., Batterham, R.W., Elsworth, G.R., McPhee, C., Sparkes, L., Hawkins, M. and Osborne, R.H., 2015. Distribution of health literacy strengths and weaknesses across socio-demographic groups: a cross-sectional survey using the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ). BMC Public Health, 15(1), p.678.
Kowalski, C., Lee, S.Y.D., Schmidt, A., Wesselmann, S., Wirtz, M.A., Pfaff, H. and Ernstmann, N., 2015. The health literate health care organization 10 item questionnaire (HLHO-10): development and validation. BMC health services research, 15(1), p.47.
Nutbeam, D., 2015. Defining, measuring and improving health literacy. , 42(4), pp.450-456.
