Medical Student Health Literacy Perspectives and Experiences

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate medical student perceptions of patient health literacy and provider abilities to assess patients’ health literacy and understand themes of student reports. Methods: Data was collected through a random selection process from 324 third year medical student descriptions of health provider interactions with patients. Students completed a one month required family medicine clerkship. A total of 130 (65 students) narratives were selected from 648 stories (approximately 20%) on student perspectives of effective and ineffective encounters experienced in their training. The Common Ground core communication components (information management, active listening, addressing feelings, and reaching common ground) were used to categorize major themes. Recurrent themes described frequently in narratives were also collected. Results: Medical students described a variety of scenarios they experienced in their first two or three years of medical school and 17 quotes from the narratives were selected from 130 stories. There were four dominant themes identified from student narratives that were related to communication. These categories included information management, active listening, addressing feelings and reaching common ground. Results suggest that medical students can identify effective and ineffective communication and health literacy skills and can describe how these experiences influence health care outcomes. Patient-perceived barriers, medications and diabetes were mentioned in about half of the narratives. Conclusions: Patients’ ability to read, comprehend and act on health information from providers is an essential part of health care delivery. Understanding the perspectives of medical students can reveal areas of communication related to health literacy that impact quality of care and outcomes.