Health literacy is presumed to have positive implications for older patients especially in preventing heart failure. Arguably, research establishes 12% of adults who have the required knowledge on their health and are using the information to maintain their health (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). However, health literacy is assumed to impact negatively the self-care of adult patients especially those facing threats of heart failure. The patients’ self-efficacy is seen to be affected which may in turn either possess negative or positive results as far as health issues are concerned. Heart failure is a common affliction in America with almost 6,000,000 people living with the critical condition significantly affecting both the morbidity and mortality rates (Nguyen et al. 2015). In the current era of fast foods and other unhealthy diet choices, the rates of individuals suffering cardiovascular problems are expected to rise by 25% in the next twenty years (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Some of the patients lack disease-specific information on their conditions making them oblivious to scenarios that may further complicate their states. Health literacy is commonly believed to have a positive effect on self-care; however, the claims remain to be mere fallacies as no cogent evidence has surfaced. Patients with disease-specific knowledge are capable of successfully practicing self-care and management. The pertinent question remains to be whether: Is health literacy beneficial or detrimental in controlling the rates of heart failures and self-care in older patients with heart failures in America as compared to other means?
Numerous people suffering from heart failure lack the relevant knowledge making them inefficient in aiding their situation. Patients with health illiteracy live without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions (Chen et al. 2014). The last truism elaborates that health illiterate older patients indulge in lifestyles that further places them at danger than compared to those who are aware (Nguyen et al. 2015). While there is no approved relation between health literacy and self-care, many are of the perception that health literacy increases the rate of self-care on patients with heart failure conditions. Self-care is vital especially to patients with cardiovascular complications. Constant management of one’s health reduces their chances of complications and in extreme cases death to a cardiac arrest. Dieting is one of the most impressive aspects of maintaining a healthy heart implying that there are foods which have been described by nutritionists to be profoundly beneficial to a healthy heart in older patients (Fabbri et al. 2018). Without the understanding of the nutritional requirements, patients obliviously indulge in unhealthy diet choices that ultimately cause death (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Therefore, disease-specified information is used as a significant tool in decreasing the fatality rates of common conditions such as heart failures which mostly affect the aging proportion of the demography. A patient can evade the expenses that are associated with heart diseases through the simple practice of self-care which is made more result-yielding as compared to other curative medicines by health literacy.
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Low health literacy not only negatively affects those individuals who already have heart-related complications but also places the healthy ones at risk of developing heart failure (Chen et al. 2014). As previously ascertained, dietary choices are pivotal in preserving the well-being of the heart. Additionally, physical fitness is also pre-eminent in the maintenance of the heart (Nguyen et al. 2015). Health literal individuals will partake in healthy eating choices and exercises to increase their vitality and long life preventing them from becoming victims. Thus, health literacy did not necessarily mean formal education but withheld merely data that places a person in lower risks of death and hospitalization through heart failure (Nguyen et al. 2015). Health literacy, hence, is the general understanding of the essential health requirements mandated in making healthy sound choices. Being psychologically aware enables an individual to easily pinpoint odd occurrences and signs in the appropriate time leading to the discovery of heart problems at an early stage. Timely detection of heart failure helps in controlling and treating the condition increasing the rates of a successful recovery. High literacy levels also include the constant update of one’s health condition which is obtained from regular check-ups (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Health literacy is not only instrumental to patients living with heart failure but also those living without the condition specifically because it helps prevent the occurrence of heart failure.
Validity is the degree of accuracy and purposefulness of a given instrument and the subject measured. When evaluating the validity of Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan (2016), the journal is seen to have analyzed a quantitative study that was published from 1999 to 2004. Consequently, many aspects of the matter have changed to date and thus discredits, to some extent, the validity of the argument made. Since data obtained in the research is not from more recent time, the assumptions arrived at may be inaccurate. However, the study’s consistency over the years of research can be used to predict the results of the future concerning the rates of health illiteracy and heart failure (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The information obtained helped established the determinants of low literacy amongst patients of heart failures, gives an estimated proportion of the low health literacy amongst patients, and provides the relationship between health literacy and the administration of self-care (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The authors also systematically review the research conducted in the previous years to calculate the proportion of illiteracy amongst patients of heart failure especially the aged population. The data obtained from the research can hence be described as valid.
Also, Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan (2016) applied information from the following conducted databases that are, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, Scopus, Embase, and PubMed to provide the information on the relevant topic. The extensive and depth research guarantees a specific level of relevancy and precision as information provided has been intently scrutinized and analyzed. The journal first identified over 374 articles to be used in the case study and filtered the number down to 186 (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The articles that were excluded from the research failed to address critical factors such as the language requirement and the aspect of adult patients amongst others. The scholars further filtered the 186 scholarly articles down to 23 which exhausted the topic of health illiteracy by considering both health failure patients and non-health failure patients (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Therefore, the arguments provided are rather compelling given the vast number of sources that the authors utilized in their research. John Hopkins Research Evidence Appraisal Tool was used to appraise the generic information issued by all the articles initially included in the study (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The tool assessed the quality of the content and depth of the Topic as covered in each article. Data was then extracted using a table to evaluate the accuracy and errors in the pieces of literature. The statistics presented have a higher percentage of credibility due to the thorough research process entailed.
Reliability is the level of consistency derived from conducting the same experiment multiple times, independently (Nguyen et al. 2015). Looking at Table 1, one can observe the consistency in some of the factors used by various works of literature. Although not all sources used the same size of the population, the mean of the ages used is closely related. Thus, the quality of the rating will also vary depending on the percentage of patient sample population used and the gender (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The source portrays reliability because the studies it carried out yielded almost similar results expressing a certain level of accuracy. Majority of articles used gave a general prevalence of low health literacy as 39% while the rest gave different figures from 17.5% to 97%. Further raising the bar of reliability is the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults which was the frequently applied tool in the studies which reported an average prevalence of 41% (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Given the standard variables used in the study, and the quotidian tools used to examine the data obtained, the reliability of the scholarly article is of a high degree as results obtained do not wildly deviate from one another.
In determining the prevalence of low health literacy amongst heart failure adult patients, all sources describe the scale to be moderately low. The studies also considered the racial factor of the patients in the sample population and unanimously concluded that health illiteracy was lower in Hispanics and African Americans as compared to White Americans (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Educational attainment was also discovered to have a directly proportional relationship with health literacy. Individuals with formal education were found to be more aware of the critical condition and the various ways to practice self-care while those who had not attained any form of formal education displayed ignorance towards heart failure (Nguyen et al. 2015). The studies concluded that participants who had an education level lower than high school were most likely to have a limited understanding of their health conditions while those with higher academic achievements had high health literacy (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The findings relating to establishing the relationship between health literacy and self-care was found indecisive. Of the four studies conducted on the matter, two sources deduced that there was a significant correlation between the two variables while one source maintained that there was a relationship between health literacy and self-care (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). The authors then used the European HF Behavior Scale to test the hypothesis and discovered that no relationship was established between the two variables.
In conclusion, health literacy is crucial in determining, controlling, and preventing serious diseases such as heart failure. The number of individuals suffering from heart failure has been discovered to be about 6,000,000 people in America only (Nguyen et al. 2015). The figures are expected to rise as one includes other countries of the world. The study concluded that health literacy was paramount not only in administering self-care to oneself but also helps even healthy individuals to maintain. The study considered a few parameters which were the predictors of low health literacy such as education, racial composition, size, and age. The research gathered that education was directly proportionate to health literacy level (Cajita, Cajita, Han, & Faan, 2016). Also, there was no convincing proof found to relate the rate of health literacy to the self-care of patients. The apparatus and methodology used were successful in generating conclusive results with very little disparities in the final figures. Accordingly, the study qualifies to be both a reliable and valid source of information. Health literacy is, hence is the positive contribution to the health systems especially to the adult patients of heart failure as it encourages self-care which eventually promotes the improvement in the health conditions of individuals and is also active as a preventive measure.
References
Cajita, M. I., Cajita, T. R., Han, H., & Faan, R. N. (2016). Health Literacy and Heart Failure: A systematic Review. The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing , 31 (2), 121-130.
Chen, A. M., Yehle, K. S., Albert, N. M., Ferraro, K. F., Mason, H. L., Murawski, M. M., & Plake, K. S. (2014). Relationships between health literacy and heart failure knowledge, self-efficacy, and self-care adherence. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy , 10 (2), 378-386
Fabbri, M., Yost, K., Finney Rutten, L. J., Manemann, S. M., Boyd, C. M., Jensen, D., … Roger, V. L. (2018). Health Literacy and Outcomes in Patients With Heart Failure: A Prospective Community Study. Mayo Clinic Proceedings , 93 (1), 9-15.
Nguyen, T. H., Park, H., Han, H., Chan, K. S., Paasche-Orlow, M. K., Haun, J., & Kim, M. T. (2015). State of the science of health literacy measures: Validity implications for minority populations. Patient Education and Counseling , 98 (12), 1492-1512.
