Institute of Nursing Science, University of Education Schwaebisch Gmuend, 73525 Schwaebisch Gmuend, Germany.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2024 Aug 9;21(8):1048. doi: 10.3390/ijerph21081048.
Health literacy can be defined as an individual's competence to use knowledge and information to maintain and improve health. Research has shown the crucial importance of health literacy in everyday life. Nurses play an important role in fostering patients' health literacy. But there is a lack in research on nurses' health literacy and how it influences their work. Therefore, this study aims to determine nursing students' health literacy and find out whether this group assessed that there was a change in their health literacy before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, this study aims to find out whether there is a relation between nursing students' assessments of their health literacy and their assessments of whether and how they use strategies to foster their patients' health literary in everyday work. We conducted a longitudinal study with two points of measurement, before the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 112) and after (N = 304). Nursing students filled out an online questionnaire using validated scales. To analyze the data, we used descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and Welch's -test. The results show that before the COVID-19 pandemic, the nursing students assessed their health literacy as quite high, and after the COVID-19 pandemic, they found it difficult to access ( = 17.881; < 0.001; Cohen's d = 0.46), understand ( = 16.404; < 0.001; Cohen's d = 0.56), appraise ( = 15.429; < 0.00; Cohen's d = 0.47), and apply health-related information ( = 13.761; < 0.001; Cohen's d = 0.54). Implications of our study concern nurses' vocational education and training in which nurses must learn about health literacy and strategies to foster their patients' health literacy.
健康素养可以被定义为个体运用知识和信息来维持和改善健康的能力。研究表明，健康素养在日常生活中至关重要。护士在培养患者健康素养方面发挥着重要作用。然而，目前关于护士健康素养以及健康素养如何影响其工作的研究还比较缺乏。因此，本研究旨在确定护理学生的健康素养，并了解该群体是否认为在 COVID-19 大流行前后其健康素养发生了变化。此外，本研究旨在发现护理学生对其健康素养的评估与其对在日常工作中是否以及如何使用策略来培养患者健康素养的评估之间是否存在关系。我们进行了一项具有两个测量点的纵向研究，分别在 COVID-19 大流行之前（N = 112）和之后（N = 304）进行。护理学生使用经过验证的量表在线填写问卷。为了分析数据，我们使用了描述性统计、相关分析和 Welch's -检验。结果表明，在 COVID-19 大流行之前，护理学生评估其健康素养水平相当高，而在 COVID-19 大流行之后，他们发现很难获取（ = 17.881； < 0.001；Cohen's d = 0.46）、理解（ = 16.404； < 0.001；Cohen's d = 0.56）、评估（ = 15.429； < 0.00；Cohen's d = 0.47）和应用与健康相关的信息（ = 13.761； < 0.001；Cohen's d = 0.54）。本研究的意义在于关注护士的职业教育和培训，在培训中，护士必须了解健康素养以及培养患者健康素养的策略。
