Relationship between knowledge and implementing health literacy strategies in patient education

Communication is one of the basic and most important skills for health care providers. Using health literacy strategies in patient education as a communication tactics by nurse practitioners make the information understandable for patients and also the effectiveness of the education will increase dramatically. The aim of this study was to assess nurse practitioners knowledge and practice of health literacy strategies in patient education and the correlation between these two factors. This descriptive cross-sectional study was done in May and June 2014 on 148 nurse practitioners of Al-Zahra educational hospital, Isfahan and Iran. Data collected via researcher made standardized questionnaire consist of three parts respectively: Demographics, Knowledge about health literacy and its strategies, and health literacy strategies practice. Data analyzed by SPSS v.17 using descriptive-analytic statistics. The mean score of knowledge was dramatically low 5.89±2.1 (from maximum available score of 14) and the mean score of nurses in health literacy strategies practice was 21.74±3.47. There was a positive relationship between total knowledge of respondents and their practice and also there was statistically significant correlation between basic facts about health literacy and standards for designing health materials subscales and practice.Discussion and According to the findings nurse practitioners have limited knowledge about health literacy strategies and don’t have desirable use of health literacy strategies in practice. Considering that nurses who had better knowledge about health literacy had also better practice in using health literacy strategies in patient education and the key role of health literacy in high quality patient centered health care, it seems retrain courses for nurses with aim of empowering them in this field is necessary.