Integrated Review of Health Literacy Interventions

Health literacy involves reading, numeracy, comprehension, and the ability to make appropriate decisions about healthcare. The nurse needs to understand the impact health literacy has on patient education. Sixteen research articles that used an experimental design were reviewed in this integrated review to examine the effectiveness of intervention strategies related to health literacy. The studies found that the use of low literacy interventions was focused on making health education material easier to understand with the expectation that patients would be able to better self-manage their disease or condition. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of recommended low health literacy strategies, identify best practices, and determine how these practices can be used to benefit the widest range of patients. Nurses need to be involved in the development of evidenced-based interventions that meet the needs of patients with low health literacy in the least threatening manner.