Relationships Between Health Literacy, Medication Knowledge and Medication Adherence in Elderly Patients with Chronic Diseases

Son, Youn-Jung

Tuesday, 23 July 2013: 1:50 PM

Youn-Jung Son, PhD¹
Seong Sook Kong, PhD¹
Young-Su Park²
Mi-Ae You, PhD³
(1)Department of Nursing, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, South Korea
(2)College of Nursing, Yonsei University, Cheonan, South Korea
(3)College of Nursing, Ajou University, Suwon, South Korea

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to understand impact/effect of health literacy on medication adherence in patients with chronic disease.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to develop medication adherence enhancement program for patients with chronic disease.

Purpose: Low health literacy predict medication knowledge and medication adherence, but no study has jointly examined these relationships in South Korea. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between health literacy, medication knowledge and medication adherence in elderly patients with chronic disease.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study of 289 elderly patients age 65 and older from an academic medical center. Patients completed questionnaires for the screening test of health literacy, medication knowledge and medication adherence. Data were analyzed with PASW 18.0 program.

Results: The mean score of health literacy, medication knowledge and medication adherence were respectively 50.54±13.45, 11.95±4.79, and 5.80±1.89. Health literacy, medication knowledge and medication adherence showed significant difference according to educational level, activities of daily living and reading and writing skills. Low health literacy was significantly associated lower medication knowledge (r=.24, p<.001) and medication adherence (r=.25, p<.001). Finally, health literacy (β=.22, p<.001) was the strongest predictor of medication adherence adjusted for other variables.

Conclusion: For improving medication adherence, this study is suggested that medication enhancement program based on health literacy should be provided to elderly patients with chronic disease.

See more of: Health Care Initiatives for Chronic Conditions in the Elderly
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