Knowledge and motivation: two elements of health literacy that remain low with regard to nurse practitioners in Australia.

Conclusion The low levels of health literacy raise questions of how to meaningfully include health consumers in innovative health-related policy work. What is known about the topic? Health literacy includes individual attributes and those of the system in which the context of care is placed. Individual attributes include not only knowledge and confidence but also motivation. It is known that consumer knowledge related to the nursing workforce is low. What does this paper add? This paper adds the finding that along with knowledge that consumer motivation is low to find out more about the nursing workforce in general. This finding extends to Nurse Practitioners in particular. This is occurring in the context of frequent contact with nurses in the context in which care is received. What are the implications for practitioners? This finding informs strategies to build health literacy in the community, as the approach that will lead to success is clearly not just one of providing accessible information. The factor of motivation warrants attention.
PMID: 25751752 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Australian Health Review - March 10, 2015 Category: Hospital Management Authors: Cashin A, Heartfield M, Cox D, Dunn S, Stasa H Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research