Health Literacy in Patients Considering a Left Ventricular Assist Device: Findings From the DECIDE-LVAD Trial

To assess the interaction of health literacy and a shared intervention concerning decision quality in patients considering the destination therapy of left ventricular assist device (DT LVAD) implantation.

Evidence is limited for the use of decision aids by patients with low health literacy and with life-threatening illnesses.

We performed a secondary analysis of the DECIDE-LVAD Trial, a randomized, stepped-wedge trial conducted from 2015-2017 in the United States. The intervention was the integration of a formal shared decision-making intervention. The main outcome was decision quality as measured by LVAD knowledge and values-treatment concordance. Two components of health literacy were measured by the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine and Subjective Numeracy Scale instruments.

Of the 228 patients studied, 44% (n = 101) received the formal shared decision-making intervention, and half had low health literacy. Knowledge of LVAD improved for patients with low literacy in the intervention group compared to the control group: the difference in increased knowledge score was 10.6%; P = 0.04. Values-treatment concordance improved significantly for patients with low literacy in the intervention group compared to the control group: the median improvement in values-treatment correlation coefficient was 0.43; P = 0.03. These benefits were not significant in those with adequate literacy (n = 171). Patients with low numeracy (n = 94) did not show significant improvements in either measure of decision quality, and patients with adequate numeracy (n = 134) showed improvement in LVAD knowledge but not in values-treatment concordance.

Patients considering DT LVAD implantation with low literacy showed improvement in decision quality after the integration of a shared decision-making intervention.