Rajah Retha, Hassali Mohamed Azmi, Lim Ching Jou
Pharmacy Department, Hospital Seberang Jaya, Penang, Malaysia.
Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
Front Public Health. 2017 Oct 19;5:281. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00281. eCollection 2017.
Patients' health literacy (HL) has emerged as a critical determinant of health outcomes and becoming one of the core competencies of health-care providers. Therefore, this study aimed to assess among Malaysian physicians, pharmacists, and nurses, their HL-related knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers, and also to determine the associated factors.
A cross-sectional study design was used to enroll 600 eligible respondents using stratified sampling from 6 public hospitals in Penang, Malaysia. A validated self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed with statistical significance defined as < 0.05.
The response rate was 87.6% with 526 questionnaires completed. Of these, 34.2% had poor knowledge, and more than half had negative attitude (51.9%) toward HL with no significant differences among physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. The majority of the respondents perceived time constraints and lack of human resources as major HL barriers. Respondents who had heard the term or concept of HL had significantly higher level of knowledge ( < 0.001) and more positive attitude ( < 0.001). While longer service years (≥11 years) significantly contribute to the higher level of HL knowledge among health-care providers ( = 0.028).
The study findings supported the concern on inadequate knowledge and substantially negative attitude toward HL among study health-care providers with highest cited barriers were time constraint and human resources. Thus, efforts to improve their perspective about HL to be effective patient educators are highly advocated.
患者的健康素养已成为健康结果的关键决定因素，并正成为医疗保健提供者的核心能力之一。因此，本研究旨在评估马来西亚的医生、药剂师和护士的健康素养相关知识、态度和感知障碍，并确定相关因素。
采用横断面研究设计，通过分层抽样从马来西亚槟城的6家公立医院招募600名合格受访者。使用经过验证的自填式问卷进行数据收集。进行描述性和推断性分析，统计学显著性定义为<0.05。
回复率为87.6%，共完成526份问卷。其中，34.2%的人知识水平较差，超过一半的人（51.9%）对健康素养持消极态度，医生、药剂师和护士之间无显著差异。大多数受访者认为时间限制和人力资源不足是主要的健康素养障碍。听说过健康素养术语或概念的受访者知识水平显著更高（<0.001），态度更积极（<0.001）。而工作年限较长（≥11年）显著有助于提高医疗保健提供者的健康素养知识水平（=0.028）。
研究结果支持了对研究中的医疗保健提供者健康素养知识不足和态度严重消极的担忧，最常被提及的障碍是时间限制和人力资源。因此，强烈提倡努力改善他们对健康素养的看法，使其成为有效的患者教育者。
