Abstract
Background. Patients engage in health information-seeking behaviour to maintain their wellbeing and to manage chronic diseases such as arthritis. Health literacy allows patients to understand available treatments and to critically appraise information they obtain from a wide range of sources. Aims. To explore how arthritis patients' health literacy affects engagement in arthritis-focused health information-seeking behaviour and the selection of sources of health information available through their informal social network. Methods. An exploratory, qualitative study consisting of one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Twenty participants with arthritis were recruited from community organizations. The interviews were designed to elicit participants' understanding about their arthritis and arthritis medication and to determine how the participants' health literacy informed selection of where they found information about their arthritis and pain medication. Results. Participants with low health literacy were less likely to be engaged with health information-seeking behaviour. Participants with intermediate health literacy were more likely to source arthritis-focused health information from newspapers, television, and within their informal social network. Those with high health literacy sourced information from the internet and specialist health sources and were providers of information within their informal social network. Conclusion. Health professionals need to be aware that levels of engagement in health information-seeking behaviour and sources of arthritis-focused health information may be related to their patients' health literacy.
Highlights
Health information-seeking behaviour has been identified as a key component of patient behaviour which assists in the psychosocial adjustment to illness [1]
The remaining participants were almost evenly distributed between the intermediate and high categories of health literacy. The majority of those estimated as level 1 and Level 2 health literacy were from Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, whereas the majority of the English-speaking background participants were estimated as Level 3 health literacy
Based on the results of this exploratory study, it appears that patients living with arthritis who have limited literacy skills and limited knowledge about their arthritis/arthritis pain medications perceive themselves to be managing their disease and medications according to what the doctor has prescribed
Summary
Health information-seeking behaviour has been identified as a key component of patient behaviour which assists in the psychosocial adjustment to illness [1]. Previous health informationseeking behaviour studies have focused on why patients engage in this behaviour, typically as a coping mechanism [1], from where they get their health information [3] and the kind of information they find [2, 4]. Patients engage in health information-seeking behaviour to maintain their wellbeing and to manage chronic diseases such as arthritis. To explore how arthritis patients’ health literacy affects engagement in arthritis-focused health information-seeking behaviour and the selection of sources of health information available through their informal social network. Participants with intermediate health literacy were more likely to source arthritis-focused health information from newspapers, television, and within their informal social network. Health professionals need to be aware that levels of engagement in health informationseeking behaviour and sources of arthritis-focused health information may be related to their patients’ health literacy
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