Patient at community clinics: Recommendations for advancing health literacy.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to assess community clinics in enhancing health literacy among underserved patients. We focus on patient-provider communication at these clinics to understand how this communication may foster or hinder health literacy and how the organizational health literacy of clinics may be improved.

Methods: We surveyed 303 patients at three community clinics to evaluate providers' communication behaviors related to health literacy. The city health department entered surveys into SurveyMonkey™ and analyzed them using Stata/SE™. The analysis included frequencies of all variables for all participants and by clinic. Qualitative methods were also used.

Results: Community clinics are trusted care sources; however, around 13 % of patients reported rarely or never being encouraged to ask questions, 20 % reported providers spoke too fast, and 17 % reported that medical staff were not always informative. Patients needing an interpreter reported more communication problems than those not requiring one, making these results more salient.

Conclusions: Community clinics serving low-income patients can enhance personal and organizational health literacy by improving patient-provider communication such as active listening, encouraging patients to ask questions, and addressing language barriers.

Practice implications: Advancing health literacy impacts community and public health initiatives, improves health disparities, builds patient-provider trust, and improves health systems.