| Inadequate health literacy is a problem. Individuals with inadequate health literacy skills have poor self-care and disease management capabilities, make multiple medications errors and have a propensity towards longer and more costly hospital stays, all of which lead to excessive healthcare expenditures of more than ;The purpose of this study was to identify the health literacy skills of older adults and the preferred type, design and delivery of health education materials for older adults with inadequate health literacy. Subsequently, it was the goal to provide a basis from which healthcare practitioners can create effective health education materials as a method of reducing the impact that poor health literacy skills has on health outcomes. A convenience sample of 25 participants was selected from a senior health care clinic affiliated with a large public healthcare system located in North Texas. To assure sameness of sample in terms of morbidity, only patients with both diabetes mellitus and hypertension were invited to participate in this study. The Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOFHLA) was administered to measure the literacy skills of the sample. In addition, an 18-question interview was conducted to capture the health education preferences of the participants.;The participants were primarily African-American and Hispanic and the mean age of the sample was 76.04 years. The results of this study indicated that 48 percent of the sample demonstrated less than adequate health literacy. Forty-seven percent of the African-American and Hispanic participants had less than adequate health literacy, while only a third of the Caucasian participants had inadequate literacy skills. Older adults with inadequate health literacy preferred health education that is either verbal or in the form of videotape, while older adults with adequate health literacy preferred verbal or written materials with few pictures. In addition, older adults with adequate literacy skills preferred to be spoken to directly while their counterparts preferred to have health education delivered in the presence of or directly to a caregiver. |
