Regional Health Agency Marche Region, Palazzo Rossini - via Gentile da Fabriano n.3, Ancona, 60125, Italy.
IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy.
BMC Med Educ. 2023 Sep 8;23(1):650. doi: 10.1186/s12909-023-04608-3.
Health literacy has a strong influence on individual health outcomes and the sustainability of healthcare systems. Healthcare professionals often overestimate patients' health literacy levels and lack adequate competencies to address limited health literacy effectively. Therefore, promoting understanding through effective health communication between professionals and citizens is becoming increasingly important. Although health literacy has recently gained more attention, health literacy educational programmes targeting future healthcare professionals are still scarce, especially in Europe. This study describes the piloting process of a pan-European health literacy educational programme and shows how the educational material is being used during time of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The educational programme was developed through the definition of an educational philosophy and iterative co-creation processes consisting of stakeholders' consultations, material development and pilots with students. The evaluation was carried out in Italy through four pilot tests involving 107 students of health-related degrees. An evaluation questionnaire and a pre-post test were developed and used to collect students' and educators' feedback (quantitative and qualitative) and assess changes in health literacy awareness, respectively. Three additional pilots were organized in Italy and Germany mostly during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate the feasibility of the educational programme through online and hybrid learning, respectively.
The pilots received positive feedback from both students and educators. Students were highly satisfied with the courses, reported their relevance for their future profession and appreciated the interactive teaching methods. The pre-post test showed a significant improvement in health literacy awareness after the training. Educators reported the adequacy and flexibility of the training material, the ease of transferability of the content of the lessons into practice, and the validity of the tested options to integrate the educational programme into the curricula.
Our comprehensive, evidence-based educational programme contributes to addressing the existing challenges in Europe, and its flexibility allows for easy integration in the curricula, through different options, hence supporting a widespread uptake in the European Union and maybe beyond. Health literacy education is a useful tool to improve citizens' access to healthcare information and services, achieve better health outcomes and support healthcare systems' sustainability.
健康素养对个体健康结果和医疗保健系统的可持续性有很强的影响。医疗保健专业人员往往高估患者的健康素养水平，并且缺乏足够的能力来有效应对有限的健康素养。因此，促进专业人员和公民之间有效的健康沟通以提高理解变得越来越重要。尽管健康素养最近受到了更多的关注，但针对未来医疗保健专业人员的健康素养教育计划仍然很少，特别是在欧洲。本研究描述了一个泛欧健康素养教育计划的试点过程，并展示了在 COVID-19 大流行等危机期间如何使用教育材料。
该教育计划是通过定义教育理念和迭代共同创造过程来制定的，这些过程包括利益相关者的咨询、材料的开发以及与学生一起进行的试点。在意大利通过涉及 107 名健康相关学位学生的四个试点进行了评估。开发了一个评估问卷和一个前后测试，以收集学生和教育者的反馈（定量和定性），并评估健康素养意识的变化。还在意大利和德国组织了另外三个试点，主要是在 COVID-19 大流行期间，通过在线和混合学习分别评估教育计划的可行性。
试点得到了学生和教育者的积极反馈。学生对课程非常满意，报告说这些课程与他们未来的职业相关，并赞赏互动式教学方法。培训后，健康素养意识明显提高。教育者报告说培训材料的充分性和灵活性、将课程内容转移到实践中的便利性以及测试选项的有效性，以将教育计划纳入课程。
我们的综合、基于证据的教育计划有助于应对欧洲目前面临的挑战，其灵活性允许通过不同的选择轻松地将其纳入课程，从而支持在欧盟及其他地区的广泛采用。健康素养教育是提高公民获得医疗保健信息和服务的机会、实现更好的健康结果和支持医疗保健系统可持续性的有用工具。
