StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Nobody downloaded yet

The Medical Impacts of Low Health Literacy among the American Population - Research Paper Example

Summary
"The Medical Impacts of Low Health Literacy among the American Population" paper examines the strategies that should the government to help enhance patient and family health literacy in the country, and the impacts of low health literacy among patients and their families on the nursing practice.  …
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.7% of users find it useful
The Medical Impacts of Low Health Literacy among the American Population
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Medical Impacts of Low Health Literacy among the American Population"

Download file to see previous pages

Inadequate literacy among the American general population is attributed to poor management of chronic health conditions and this has significant impacts on the health outcomes. Health literacy influences the communication between the patient and the physician and any miscommunication because of illiteracy has serious implication on both the patient and the physician’s efforts. The lack of proper health literacy among patients has been attributed to a number of fatal mistakes committed by patients because of their personal ignorance.

The extent of health literacy and how personal education affects individuals’ ability to understand medical instructions has not been studied well and determined. According to (Baker, 2006), communication is essential for the effective delivery of health care and is considered as a powerful tool in the nursing fraternity. Mismatch between a nurse’s level of communication and a patient’s level of comprehension exist in most medical situations leading to high chances of misinterpretation of the information given to them by the nurses.

The lack of understanding between the two groups results into medication errors, missed appointments, increased cases of malpractice lawsuits and even adverse medical outcomes, which affect the life of the patient. Health literacy within the nursing context has been shown to have positive effects on the health of individuals as well as the entire cost of the health system. Health literacy seeks to empower patients, their relatives and others who are close to them to help improve the chances of recovering and reduce instances of disease communication to others.

In this situation, the impacts and importance of health literacy to the nursing fraternity, hospital workers, the patient, his/her relatives and close friends with personal contact will be evaluated.

...Download file to see next pages Read More

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Medical Impacts of Low Health Literacy among the American Population

Health Literacy and HIV Treatment Adherence

As per the CDC data, the american patient obtains information and makes his or her treatment decision based on the feedback received from the home or the community, while spending just about an hour a year on the medical care provider's premises.... among the different factors contributing to non-adherence, health literacy is considered one of the major players.... This thesis "health literacy and HIV Treatment Adherence" focuses on the only effective treatment for HIV/AIDS which is a regular medication with anti-retroviral therapy (ART)....
17 Pages (4250 words) Thesis

Financial Impact of the Underserved Population

The minorities of low socioeconomic status, such as pregnant women, the disabled and others face profound health disparity.... Such populations are typically diverse, of low-income brackets, and lack adequate access to quality health care often termed as the safety net segment (Teitelbaum et al.... The underserved individuals more often only access the invasive procedures that could be relatively costly or conducted without the knowledge of the medical specialist....
8 Pages (2000 words) Research Paper

Promoting Health Literacy for Children in Developing Countries

This assignment "Promoting health literacy for Children in Developing Countries" ventures into the field of health issues and focuses on the impacts of health illiteracy across the board in society with some emphasis made on the effects of Gastroenteritis in children.... health literacy according to the US Library Of Medicine (2010) is the ability to read, understand and act on medical guidelines.... It involves the ability of the public to understand various disease symptoms and interpret the prescriptions as instructed by the health officer....
11 Pages (2750 words) Assignment

Health Literacy and Nursing

To help cushion nurses from taking responsibility for health-related errors committed by patients, there is an increased need to evaluate ways of improving health literacy among the general population.... There is a lot of evidence to illustrate the grave consequences of low health literacy levels among residents of the United States and how this affects the general nursing profession.... he level of patient literacy at this time was attributed to the increased development of theophylline resistance among the general population attributed to a lack of clear adherence to the instructions....
11 Pages (2750 words) Research Paper

Community Health Needs and Services

This essay describes on the challenges that the american Indians face and further demonstrate how they impact their health needs and services.... Most of these approaches have failed to apply and take root in the american Indian community due to the failure on the part of the healthcare providers to articulate their unique culture.... the american Indians, therefore, looks towards their culture when looking for beliefs, values, and perspectives on illness and subsequent measures of managing it (Garcia)....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

The Health Challenges of African-Americans

Inequality in health status has plagued the minority population in the United States for more than fifty years.... African-Americans in the United States continue to face a variety of health-related challenges including high rates of general mortality, infant mortality, cancer, hypertension, and HIV and AIDS, among others.... Accordingly, there are many repercussions of this unequal access and the health ramifications of persistent inequality in the United States are most evident among minority groups....
12 Pages (3000 words) Term Paper

Promoting Public Health Literacy

The paper "Promoting Public health literacy " is an excellent example of a case study on health sciences and medicine.... The paper "Promoting Public health literacy " is an excellent example of a case study on health sciences and medicine.... Many a time, it is expected that the public has inherent health literacy and/or an individual technically knows how to prevent particular diseases, identify a sick individual (including children, by noting some detectable clinical signs) and act (Janet, 2011, pp....
8 Pages (2000 words) Case Study

Health Literacy in Elderly Patients

The paper "health literacy in Elderly Patients" is a good example of a term paper on nursing.... The paper "health literacy in Elderly Patients" is a good example of a term paper on nursing.... The paper "health literacy in Elderly Patients" is a good example of a term paper on nursing.... The immobility and lack of health literacy make their health conditions deteriorate as time goes by.... ategories of health literacy ...
8 Pages (2000 words) Term Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us