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Preliminary Care Coordination Plan for Health Literacy

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Preliminary Care Coordination Plan for Health Literacy

Health literacy involves obtaining, understanding, and using health information to make health decisions. This is crucial for closing the healthcare gap and providing better health services. The health capacity of people is undermined on a global scale when they need health literacy. It limits their ability to navigate the healthcare system, manage chronic diseases, and maintain their health. This care coordination plan involves examining the physical, psychological, and cultural impacts of health literacy as well as community resources for those with low literacy.

Physical Considerations

For people with chronic diseases such as coronary artery disease, a lack of health literacy can be life-threatening. Low health literacy comes hand in hand with asthma, COPD, and kidney disease (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). CHD involves self-care and illness management; thus, health literacy becomes pivotal. To prevent the aggravation of the disease and boost the quality of life, coronary artery disease patients should learn about their illness, stick to the treatment, and control their lifestyle. Physical activity prevents and treats chronic illnesses and enhances the community's health literacy. The situation of low health literacy is based on emergency care rather than preventive care (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). This results in rising health outcomes and health system strains, driving the costs and resources used up. Hence, health literacy plays a major role in this regard, and it helps to improve physical health, reduce health inequities, and facilitate the intelligent use of resources (Liu et al., 2020).

Psychosocial Implications

Inadequate health literacy has been found to correlate with the deteriorating status of mental wellbeing. Health literacy may cause depression, anxiety, and tense emotions (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). Health information understanding, the difficulty of symptom management, and the right healthcare choices are all parts of this. Patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) are at a significant risk of having mental health issues because of the complexity of the disease itself and the self-care procedures required (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). Inadequate perception of health-related issues may cause an emotional breakdown in college students, which can lead to a decline in their academic performance and a decrease in their general quality of life (Rababah et al., 2020). Health condition-related information shortage may contribute to low self-efficacy and healthcare service participation lack due to dissatisfaction, helplessness, and stigma in a complicated healthcare system, as Peprah et al. (2023) assert.

As one of the other mental health issues, depression may negatively affect health literacy; consequently, the relationship between mental health and health information comprehension and use might be more complicated (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). The efforts targeting health literacy should encompass physical and psychological wellbeing as they are inextricably linked to overall health (Rababah et al., 2020). Psychosocial problems need psychosocial assistance, patient empowerment, and community-based treatment. Healthcare professionals can use mental health screenings, counseling, and peer support programs to lessen the psychosocial effect of low health literacy (Peprah et al., 2023). Healthcare and community partnerships are also crucial in increasing health literacy and de-stigmatizing mental health to some extent.

Cultural Considerations

Cultural impact on health literacy and health services and information use is manifested in people's health literacy and health services and information use. Cultural elements and views on health can be a factor in health literacy; they can influence how people understand health and sickness. Language barriers, low levels of education, and dissimilar health beliefs among marginalized groups, like refugees, may influence the general level of health literacy (Peprah et al., 2023).

Peprah et al. (2023) mention that the refugee community, particularly those of African descent, are confronted by various linguistic, social, and cultural barriers to health care. To provide remedies for those deficiencies, healthcare systems should be culturally sensitive. To help patients understand health information and talk with different people, healthcare workers should be culturally competent. Recognizing cultural beliefs, norms, and values of people helps practitioners develop different types of education, communication, and treatment that are effective for other cultures (Peprah et al., 2023). Translation, transportation, and healthcare facilities that can treat patients in a cultural manner are the factors needed to give patients with low levels of health literacy culturally competent care.

Community Resources

A foundational health literacy coordination strategy would involve the identification and utilization of community resources. The products also can support health literacy, health education, and healthcare. Health literacy, patient education, and health navigators could help people understand the meaning of their health and make the appropriate decisions (Ahcioglu & Yilmazel, 2022). Cultural health literacy is possible with healthcare providers' cultural competency training and language interpretation (Peprah et al., 2023). Education, outreach, and support groups build health literacy and healthy habits of people in the community. Community organizations, Head Start programs, and local libraries are listed among the top five resources and information sources (Baur et al., 2019).

Health literacy is accomplished through the coordinated action of all these professionals, community-based groups, and stakeholders (Baur et al., 2019). These organizations can develop specific cultural-sensitive strategies and health education programs meant to improve people's health literacy and inform their health decisions (Baur et al., 2019). Health literacy is an essential element to patient learning programs and primary care, including the provision of adequate support resources for people with different levels of health literacy and the assurance of a safe transition to treatment. Liu et al. (2020) argue that health literacy projects usually obtain low funding, meaning that it is difficult for the projects to distribute resources unilaterally, and the intervention has to be evaluated and adjusted to the changing healthcare needs. The latter are the researcher-based solutions, provider-community collaborations, and legislative amendments that prioritize health literacy in the public health sector.

References

Ahcioglu, A., & Yilmazel, G. (2022). Health literacy, behavioral and psychosocial characteristics in coronary artery patients: A hospital-based study in Turkey.  Journal of Acute Disease,  11(1), 18-25. https://journals.lww.com/joad/fulltext/2022/11010/health_literacy,_behavioral_and_psychosocial.3.aspx#:~:text=Health%20literacy%20is%20generally%20affected,levels%20in%20the%20present%20study.

Baur, C., Martinez, L. M., Tchangalova, N., & Rubin, D. (2019). Community-based health literacy interventions: proceedings of a workshop. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK500371/

Hickey, K. T., Creber, R. M. M., Reading, M., Sciacca, R. R., Riga, T. C., Frulla, A. P., & Casida, J. M. (2019). Low health literacy: Implications for managing cardiac patients in practice.  The Nurse Practitioner,  43(8), 49-55. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6391993/#:~:text=Low%20functional%20health%20literacy%2C%20which,presence%20of%20multiple%20chronic%20conditions.

Liu, L., Qian, X., Chen, Z., & He, T. (2020). Health literacy and its effect on chronic disease prevention: evidence from China’s data.  BMC Public Health,  20, 1–14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227325/

Peprah, P., Lloyd, J., & Harris, M. (2023). Health literacy and cultural responsiveness of primary health care systems and services in Australia: reflections from service providers, stakeholders, and people from refugee backgrounds.  BMC Public Health,  23(1), 2557. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-17448-z

Rababah, J. A., Al-Hammouri, M. M., & Drew, B. L. (2020). The impact of health literacy on college students’ psychological disturbances and quality of life: a structural equation modeling analysis.  Health and Quality of Life Outcomes,  18, 1–9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457482/