Health Literacy Training for Health Care Professionals: a systematic review

Abstract

Introduction : Healthcare provider-patient communication could be interfered by the misunderstanding of individuals’ health literacy (HL) by healthcare providers. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify the characteristics of effective training in HL and examine the outcomes of these trainings to healthcare providers. Method : A search in the online databases, including PubMed, Ovid, and CINAHL, was conducted. The following keywords: nurse, doctor, healthcare provider, healthcare professional, medical student, nursing student, health literacy, training, education, and professional development were used. Results : A total of 13 articles were retrieved and were included in the analysis. The reviewed articles illustrated the efforts made to enhance healthcare providers’ concern about patients’ health literacy. Most of the health literacy training programs (n=8) were conducted to health professional trainees, including medical students, nursing students, dietetics students, and pharmacy students. Another five training programs were held for healthcare practitioners. Face-to-face training was the major method to conduct health literacy training, and evaluation of the effectiveness of health literacy training were mostly surveys before and after the training. Conclusion : There is an urgent need to refine the contents of health literacy training. Appropriate design of evaluation such as randomized controlled trial could be used in future studies. Keywords : health literacy, training, systematic review