Asthma numeracy skill and health literacy

Area of Science:

• Health Literacy
• Asthma Management
• Patient Education

Background:

• Effective asthma self-management relies on understanding complex health information.
• Numerical concepts like risk and percentages are crucial for adherence to treatment plans.
• Existing health literacy assessments may not fully capture numeracy skills specific to health contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Asthma Numeracy Questionnaire (ANQ).
• To assess the numeracy skills of adults with persistent asthma.
• To explore the relationship between numeracy, health literacy, and asthma-related outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 4-item Asthma Numeracy Questionnaire (ANQ).
• Administration of the ANQ and the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (STOFHLA) to 73 adults with persistent asthma.
• Analysis of the association between numeracy, STOFHLA scores, and history of asthma hospitalization.

Main Results:

• Only 16% of participants answered all 4 ANQ items correctly; 8% answered none correctly.
• Participants demonstrated the least understanding of items involving risk and percentages.
• Low numeracy, but not STOFHLA score, was significantly associated with a history of asthma hospitalization.
• A wide range of numeracy performance was observed even among individuals with higher STOFHLA scores.

Conclusions:

• Numeracy is a distinct and critical component of overall health literacy in asthma self-management.
• The ANQ is a valuable tool for assessing numeracy in this population.
• Interventions to improve numeracy skills may be necessary to enhance asthma self-management and reduce hospitalizations.