Development of a Health Literacy Workshop

Area of Science:

• Health Sciences
• Medical Education
• Information Science

Background:

• Low health literacy poses a significant burden on patients and healthcare systems.
• Healthcare providers require specialized skills to effectively address patient health literacy challenges.
• Interprofessional collaboration is crucial for developing comprehensive health literacy interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and implement health literacy workshops for healthcare providers.
• To equip providers with practical skills to mitigate patient health literacy burdens.
• To foster interprofessional understanding of health literacy principles and tools.

Main Methods:

• A consumer health librarian and nurse educators co-developed workshop content.
• Workshops covered health literacy overview, patient literacy assessment, teach-back, material evaluation, and information retrieval.
• Five workshops were delivered to healthcare providers from eight disciplines.

Main Results:

• 39 healthcare providers attended the workshops.
• Participants represented diverse healthcare disciplines, indicating broad applicability.
• Workshop feedback was overwhelmingly positive, suggesting effectiveness.

Conclusions:

• Collaborative, interprofessional training can effectively enhance healthcare providers' health literacy skills.
• The workshop model provides a scalable approach to improving patient education and support.
• Further research should evaluate the long-term impact of these skills on patient outcomes.