The helpfulness of health care information sources as perceived by parents participating in Even Start Family Literacy programs in Texas

When acquiring medical and health care information, an individual may be required to comprehend and comply with complex medical terminology and instructions. While such tasks can be challenging for anyone, these tasks may pose greater difficulty for individuals with low literacy skills and may place this population at greater risk of serious injury or mortality.;The primary purpose of this study was to identify the sources of health information used by students participating in selected Even Start Family Literacy programs in Texas. A secondary purpose was to identify the perceived difficulty of comprehension of this same information. The data for this study were collected from 332 students representing 27 Even Start Family Literacy Programs funded through TEA for the year 2002--2003.;The study focused on three research questions: (1) Where do parents participating in Even Start Family Literacy programs acquire needed health care information? (2) What methods for disseminating health care information are most useful according to parents in Even Start Family Literacy programs? (3) What causes the most difficulty in assimilating health care information according to parents in Even Start Family Literacy programs?;Frequency counts and Chi-Square tests were used to analyze the data to answer the research questions posed in this study. The findings lead the researcher to suggest that overall, participants of Even Start Family Literacy Program reported fewer difficulties in dealing with health care information than participants in research conducted in clinical settings research studies.