{"title":"Physiotherapists' views and experiences of health literacy in clinical practice.","authors":"Joanna Simkins, Richard Breakwell, Kanta Kumar","doi":"10.1002/msc.1800","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Using a qualitative design, this study aimed to explore the experience of physiotherapists' supporting patient health literacy in clinical practice, gain an understanding of their conceptualisation of health literacy, and make recommendations for improving health literacy support in clinical practice.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Convenience sampling via social media was used to recruit eight participants who were all physiotherapists practicing in the United Kingdom. Semi-structured interviews took place on Zoom during the second Covid-19 lockdown. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded, and thematically analysed to uncover physiotherapists' views on health literacy, experiences of supporting patients with health literacy and opinions and recommendations for practice.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Of the eight participants, five were female and the mean years of clinical experience as a qualified physiotherapist was 5.8. Four main themes were identified: physiotherapists' conceptualisation of health literacy, identification of health literacy and skills required to support patients, training and barriers to providing health literacy-sensitive care and recommendations for improvement.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The findings highlighted that physiotherapists identified a patient's health literacy abilities by picking up tacit clues throughout their consultations and they pre-dominantly viewed health literacy as the ability to read, write and communicate effectively. They reported having a limited exposure to health literacy training and recommended raising awareness and education as key to improve practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":46945,"journal":{"name":"Musculoskeletal Care","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Musculoskeletal Care","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1002/msc.1800","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/8/7 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"RHEUMATOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: Using a qualitative design, this study aimed to explore the experience of physiotherapists' supporting patient health literacy in clinical practice, gain an understanding of their conceptualisation of health literacy, and make recommendations for improving health literacy support in clinical practice.
Methods: Convenience sampling via social media was used to recruit eight participants who were all physiotherapists practicing in the United Kingdom. Semi-structured interviews took place on Zoom during the second Covid-19 lockdown. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, coded, and thematically analysed to uncover physiotherapists' views on health literacy, experiences of supporting patients with health literacy and opinions and recommendations for practice.
Results: Of the eight participants, five were female and the mean years of clinical experience as a qualified physiotherapist was 5.8. Four main themes were identified: physiotherapists' conceptualisation of health literacy, identification of health literacy and skills required to support patients, training and barriers to providing health literacy-sensitive care and recommendations for improvement.
Conclusion: The findings highlighted that physiotherapists identified a patient's health literacy abilities by picking up tacit clues throughout their consultations and they pre-dominantly viewed health literacy as the ability to read, write and communicate effectively. They reported having a limited exposure to health literacy training and recommended raising awareness and education as key to improve practice.
期刊介绍:
Musculoskeletal Care is a peer-reviewed journal for all health professionals committed to the clinical delivery of high quality care for people with musculoskeletal conditions and providing knowledge to support decision making by professionals, patients and policy makers. This journal publishes papers on original research, applied research, review articles and clinical guidelines. Regular topics include patient education, psychological and social impact, patient experiences of health care, clinical up dates and the effectiveness of therapy.