• J Gen Intern Med · Jul 2021

    Health Literacy, Processing Capacity, Illness Knowledge, and Actionable Memory for Medication Taking in Type 2 Diabetes: Cross-Sectional Analysis.

    • Jessie Chin, Huaping Wang, Adam W Awwad, James F Graumlich, Michael S Wolf, and Daniel G Morrow.
    • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA. chin5@illinois.edu.
    • J Gen Intern Med. 2021 Jul 1; 36 (7): 1921-1927.

    BackgroundPatient knowledge about the purpose of medications is crucial to ensure safe and correct use, so it is an important index of adherence in patients with chronic illness.ObjectiveWe examined how health literacy and its components (processing capacity and knowledge about illness) influence memory for medication purposes.DesignWe conducted a cross-sectional study to examine memory for medication purposes in relation to health literacy, processing capacity, and illness knowledge among patients with diabetes in outpatient clinics.ParticipantsSix hundred seventy-four adults who were diagnosed with type II diabetes mellitus, age 40 years or older, taking 5 or more current medications, native speakers of English, and with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) of 6.0 or more, were recruited to the study.Main MeasuresWe included measures of processing capacity, illness knowledge, health literacy, and actionable memory for medication taking (memory for medication purpose).Key ResultsResults suggested an association between health literacy and both processing capacity and health knowledge, with some evidence that knowledge can compensate for limited processing capacity in order to maintain health literacy. Furthermore, health literacy was associated with memory for medication purposes, with processing capacity and health knowledge partly mediating this association. This pattern of results supports the process-knowledge model of health literacy.ConclusionsOur findings establish the role of health literacy in medication taking, in relation to broader cognitive abilities and knowledge. Implications for improving the learning of medication purpose among diverse older adults with chronic illness are discussed.Trial RegistrationNIH trial registry number: NCT01296633.© 2021. Society of General Internal Medicine.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…