Abstract
This mixed methods research paper explores health literacy (HL) in individuals with alcohol addiction by using the 47-item version of the European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47) and semi-structured interviews concerning health-related competencies (access, understand, appraise, and apply health information), and determines the limitations of the HLS-EU-Q47 when used under specific conditions of clinical practice. The questionnaire survey and the interviews were conducted with individuals of different health literacy levels who were undergoing inpatient alcohol addiction treatment. The findings indicate that individuals with alcohol addiction might require different types of health information according to their health literacy level in terms of quantity and quality of information to recover from alcohol addiction and improve their overall health. The implications for the clinical practice of addiction treatment as well as recommendations for national and regional policy are also discussed.
Highlights
Health literacy (HL) has been identified as an important health construct with an impact on individual and population health [1,2,3]
Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q47) and qualitative analysis in the form of semi-structured interviews concerning health-related competencies elaborated by Sørensen et al [4]. Since this is one of the first studies using the HLS-EU-Q47 in a population of people who use drugs, we focus on the understanding of the questionnaire from the perspective of individuals with different health literacy levels, different severity of alcohol addiction, and in different phases of addiction treatment
While the quantitative results described the overall level of health literacy and highlighted differences in competencies related to health literacy, the qualitative analysis captured other aspects that were not possible to derive from statistical analysis of the questionnaire
Summary
Health literacy (HL) has been identified as an important health construct with an impact on individual and population health [1,2,3]. Literacy Consortium “Health literacy is linked to literacy and entails people’s knowledge, motivation and competences to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgments and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course” [4] The relevance of this concept to public health has been further emphasized by national and international decision-makers in healthcare increasingly implementing health literacy into their health policies to promote health and quality of life [1]. The Czech Republic and Bulgaria were found to be the countries with the highest prevalence of limited health literacy [5]. In the Czech Republic, the national survey showed that nearly 60% of Czechs have limited health literacy [6]. A following survey conducted in 2018 revealed that health literacy in Czechs was still decreasing [7]
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