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Abstract
BackgroundType 2 diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic disorder and has considerable impact on quality of life. Treatment of DM2 is complex and adherence to treatment requires sophisticated cognition which includes literacy skills.MethodsHealth literacy skills of a cross-sectional nonrandom sample of 164 DM2 outpatients at the Diabetes Unit of the Hospital Universitário Pedro Ernesto at the State University of Rio de Janeiro were evaluated by the short version of the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (s-TOFHLA). Procedures available in the SPSS package were used in data analysis.ResultsFourteen out of 164 patients (8.5%) were completely illiterate and therefore were not further assessed. The remaining 150 patients (75 men and 75 women) were the participants of this study. Data showed that 110 (73.3%) participants had adequate health literacy skills, 17 (11.3%) had marginal skills and 23 (15.3%) had inadequate skills. Moreover, older participants performed worse than younger patients. In addition, Caucasian and multiethnic participants performed better than Afro-Brazilians. Furthermore, participants with higher educational and occupational levels outperformed those with lower levels. However, only age and education, but not ethnic group and occupation, contributed significantly and independently to health literacy.ConclusionThis study showed that almost a quarter of the participants are illiterate or have inadequate health literacy skills. Therefore, our results indicate the need for the development of health care instructions properly calibrated to the health literacy skills of DM2 patients.
Highlights
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic disorder and has considerable impact on quality of life
Participants A cross-sectional nonrandom sample of one hundred and sixty four type 2 diabetes mellitus outpatients, 78 men and 86 women, with a mean age of 58.5 yrs (SD = 9.8) and a mean disease duration of 12.9 yrs (SD = 9.5) who came for routine visits to the Diabetes Unit of Hospital Universitário Pedro Ernesto (HUPE) were the subjects of this study
We found that 110 participants (73.3%) had an adequate level of health literacy according to their s-TOFHLA scores, 17 (11.3%) had marginal skills and 23 (15.3%) had inadequate skills
Summary
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic disorder and has considerable impact on quality of life. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is the most common metabolic disease with high morbidity and mortality and has important implications for quality of life. Chronic complications of DM2 represent a great burden to patients but. The UK Prospective Diabetes Study (1998) showed that adequate management of DM2 significantly reduces the risk of microvascular complications (retinopathy, nephropathy, and possibly neuropathy), the risk of myocardial infarction - fatal and nonfatal - and sudden death by 16% [3]. An adequate management of DM2 depends entirely on patients and their families. A major factor in adherence to treatment is the degree of comprehension of disease processes (diabetes knowledge) and the understanding of the treatment protocol itself. Low adherence to treatment seems to adversely affect the clinical outcome and quality of life [3]
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