Health literacy interventions in adult speech and language therapy: A scoping review.

Abstract

Reduced health literacy can negatively impact care seeking, satisfaction with careand overall health outcomes. These issues are particularly common among people living with communication difficulties who are seeking care from speech and language therapists (SLTs). As such, the SLT must be aware of and sensitive to health literacy needs within their clinical practice, proactively adapting materials and resources to the health literacy needs of their patients. Despite this required core competency, little is known about the health literacy interventions used by SLTs when working with adult patients, and as such, there is limited and unclear guidance for the practicing clinician, leading to potentially suboptimal care delivery. To explore the characteristics of health literacy interventions discussed in the literature for use by SLTs with adult patients. PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Scienceand The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were searched. Conference proceedings of the annual scientific meetings of the European Society for Swallowing Disorders and the Dysphagia Research Society were also searched. Grey literature was searched via the Open Grey database and, hand-searches of reference lists from included studies were conducted by both authors. Published and unpublished research investigating health literacy interventions provided by qualified SLTs providing care to adult patients in any setting for any speech and language related concerns. No language, geographic, study designor publication date limitations applied. Eligible participants in these studies were classified as: (1) patientsand (2) professionals. Data werecharted in accordance with guidelines from the Joanna Briggs Institute and the PRISMA ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) independently by both authors. A total of 1112 potentially eligible studies were identified in the initial search, with 15 studies ultimately included in the synthesis. Study design and quality varied significantly. Most explored basic functional health literacy or narratively described core components of health literacy, which an SLT should understand, without employing an investigative research design. Limited research has been conducted onthe use of health literacy interventions within adult speech and language therapy practices. This finding is significant as SLTs regularly work with people living with communication problems, and therefore, addressing health literacy should be a core tenet of service delivery. There is a need for valid, reliableand rigorous investigations of health literacy interventions within speech and language therapy to ultimately improve future patient access to and benefit from the care provided. Patient public involvement in review studies is an emerging area. Due to resource issues, it was not possible to include this element in this study.