Brian A Primack, Thuy Bui, Carl I Fertman
Social marketing meets health literacy: Innovative improvement of health care providers' comfort with patient interaction
Patient education and counseling
factors influencing medication adherence fully elucidated inadequate health literacy skills may impair comprehension medical care instructions thereby reduce medication adherence examine relationship health literacy medication refill adherence among medicare managed care enrollees cardiovascularrelated conditions prospective cohort study new medicare enrollees 4 managed care plans completed inperson survey identified administrative data coronary heart disease hypertension diabetes mellitus andor hyperlipidemia n1549 health literacy determined using short form test functional health literacy adults stofhla prospective administrative data used calculate cumulative medication gap cmg valid measure medication refill adherence 1year period low adherence defined cmg 20 overall 40 enrollees low refill adherence bivariate analyses indicated health literacy raceethnicity education regimen complexity related medication refill adherence p05 unadjusted analysis inadequate health literacy skills increased odds odds ratio or137 95 confidence interval ci 108 174 low refill adherence compared adequate health literacy skills however inadequate health literacy low refill adherence statistically significant multivariate analyses or123 95 ci 092 164 present study suggests conclusively demonstrate low health literacy predicts poor refill adherence given prevalence conditions future research continue examine important potential association