Nephrology Fellow Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine Florissant, Missouri, United States
Background: Health Literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, understand, and utilize basic health information needed to make decisions related to their health. Lower health literacy can result from health care providers using jargon, low education levels in patient population, limited English proficiency, and poor access to care. Those at risk of low health literacy include immigrants, lower socioeconomic status, and minority populations. Specifically for chronic kidney disease (CKD), lower health literacy is associated with worsening hypertension, increased mortality, delay to transplant referral and increased time on kidney transplant waitlist. Studies have demonstrated that gaps in health literacy exist and are associated with poorer outcomes, but few studies focus on interventions to bridge those gaps. Objective: The goal of the study is to illustrate if utilization of a teaching aid with pre and post questionnaire assessments will improve health literacy among parents of patient with CKD, as well as increasing their perception of participation in their child's healthcare team. Our objective is to increase the health literacy of parents of pediatric patients in the pathophysiology of CKD and assess patients’ parents interpreted understanding of CKD. Design/Methods: Participants are Parent/Caregivers of St. Louis Children’s Hospital Pediatric CKD Patients. Demographic information obtained from participant includes race, gender, highest education level completed, and zip code of residence. Parent or Legal Guardian of a child with CKD Stage 2-5 are included. Excluded are those with CKD Stage 1 or status post Kidney Transplant
Parents are enrolled via telephone. A health literacy questionnaire and patient experience questionnaire is provided for baseline assessment; correct answers not provided. A pamphlet written in English on a 6th grade reading level explaining the symptoms and treatments of chronic kidney disease is provided. Follow up phone calls are made at 1 month and 3 months post enrollment with repeat questionnaires administered.
