Knowledge of and barriers to health literacy in Illinois

To examine Illinois pharmacists' knowledge of and barriers to health literacy.

Cross-sectional descriptive study.

Illinois, August to November 2009.

701 Illinois pharmacists.

Mail survey.

Pharmacists' knowledge (percent correct), mean barrier factors, and percent agreement of barrier items.

Usable responses were obtained from 701 respondents out of 1,457 pharmacists receiving surveys (48.1%). Percent correct for knowledge items ranged from 31.5% to 95.4% with only 19% to 27% of respondents answering a majority of the items correctly. Pharmacists had poor knowledge (percent correct) about prevalence of low health literacy (31.5%), its relationship to years of schooling (46.9%) and its lack of relationship to reading comprehension (48.4%). Overall process and practice-related barrier domain items were the most important barriers. In particular, the most frequently cited barriers towards low health literacy interventions were lack of adequate time (90.4%), use of mail order (83.8%), and presence of convenient delivery mechanisms (82.8%), all process barriers. Majority of respondents (57.3%) agreed that lack of knowledge about health literacy and its consequences is a barrier. Significant differences existed for barrier factors by demographics. Multivariate analysis examining the relationship between knowledge and barriers after controlling for demographics revealed no significant differences.

Pharmacists have limited knowledge of health literacy. We suggest training programs designed to address poor knowledge, interpreter services, access to written information tailored for various reading grade levels, and minimizing functional barriers such as time constraints.