Abstract
Purpose :
Health Literacy (HL)—the ability to get, understand, and use basic health information and services—is vital to effective care delivery. However, more than 1/4th of US adults are estimated to have inadequate HL, putting them at greater risk for poor health outcomes and high health care costs. This study seeks to quantify health literacy across different ophthalmology clinics and patient education levels.
Methods :
In January 2020, routine HL assessment was integrated into the clinic intake performed by ophthalmic technicians in all comprehensive ophthalmology clinics at an academic eye institute as part of a quality improvement initiative. HL was assessed using the Brief Health Literacy Screening (BHLS), an orally administered, validated 3-item survey with each question scored on a five-point Likert scale. A retrospective chart review of adult patients seen at various ophthalmology clinic sites of an academic eye institute from January 2020 to December 2021 was performed. Information collected included basic demographic factors, education level, and HL score. Patients younger than 18 years old were excluded.
Results :
A total of 16587 patients qualified for the study. 6.58% of all patients had inadequate HL. Among the individual clinics, Retina (16.13%), Neuro-ophthalmology (11.54%), and Glaucoma (10.15%) had the highest proportion of their patients with inadequate HL. When broken down by patient education level, health literacy was greatest among patients whose highest completed education was less than high school (36.51%) or high school (7.97%) compared to those who completed college (1.96%) or an advanced degree (1.78%). Further details are presented in Table 1.
Conclusions :
Over a two-year period at an academic medical center, 6.58% of ophthalmology patients had inadequate health literacy, and inadequate HL was highest among those with less completed formal education.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.