Hannelore Storms|Bert Aertgeerts|Frank Vandenabeele|Nerée Claes
General practitioners’ predictions of their own patients’ health literacy: a cross-sectional study in Belgium
Hasselt University|Hasselt University|Antwerp Management School|Hasselt University
objectives support patients disease management providing information adjusted patients knowledge ability process health information ie health literacy crucial ensure effective health communication general practitioners gps able identify people limited health literacy end disagreement patients health literacy gps estimations thereof examined also characteristics impacting health literacy disagreement studied design crosssectional survey general practice patients gps undertaken 201617 setting fortyone general practices two dutchspeaking provinces belgium participants patients 18 years age older visiting general practices patients excluded severe impairments physical mental sensory main outcome measures patients health literacy assessed 16item european health literacy survey questionnaire gps indicated estimations patients health literacy using simple scale inadequate problematic adequate disagreement patients health literacy gps estimations thereof gps estimations equal tohigherlower patients health literacy measured using kappa statistics impact patient gp characteristics including duration gppatient relationships disagreement examined using generalised linear logit model results health literacy patients n1375 inadequate n201 146 problematic n299 217 adequate n875 636 gps overestimated proportion patients adequate health literacy adequate n1241 903 problematic n130 95 inadequate n4 03 overall gps correct overunderestimations health literacy occurred respectively 609 342 49 patients resulting slight agreement 0033 likelihood gps overunderestimate patients health literacy increases decreasing educational level patients decreasing number years patients consulting gp conclusions intuitively assessing health literacy difficult patients education duration gppatient relationships gps gender impact gps perceptions patients health literacy