Health Literacy, Cognitive Impairment, and Diabetes Knowledge Among Incarcerated Persons Transitioning to the Community: Considerations for Intervention Development.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships of health literacy (HL; Short Test of Functional Health Literacy), cognitive impairment (CI), and diabetes knowledge (DK) among incarcerated persons transitioning to the community. Using preintervention data from a quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group study evaluating the feasibility of a six-session literacy-tailored Diabetes Survival Skills intervention for incarcerated men transitioning to the community, we conducted correlational analyses among the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and Spoken Knowledge in Low Literacy in Diabetes Scale using the SPSS PROCESS macro and bias-corrected bootstrapping to test the meditational hypothesis: HL mediates the relationship between CI and DK. Participants ( N = 73) were incarcerated for 1-30 years with a mean age of 47 (9.9) years, 40% Black, 19% White, and 30% Hispanic, with 78% having high school/GED or less education. Most (70%) screened positive for CI and had low DK, and 20% had marginal or inadequate HL. HL, CI, and DK were positively associated with each other. Controlling for race, age, and group (control/experimental), cognitive function had a significant direct effect on HL ( b = 0.866, p = 0.0003) but not on DK ( b = 0.119, p = 0.076). Results indicated a significant indirect effect of cognitive functioning on DK via HL, 95% confidence interval [0.300, 0.1882]. Intervention approaches aimed at increasing HL or tailored to low HL in the presence of CI may be effective in increasing DK in this population. Given the low risk to high benefit of implementing literacy-tailored approaches to persons in prison and the population demographics from studies supporting a high degree of CI, nurses should consider implementing literacy-tailored approaches and screening for CI before participation in all educational programs.