Health Literacy-Related Knowledge and Experience among Nurses Practicing in Medical-Surgical Wards

Abstract

Background: Medical-surgical nurses are responsible of providing competent care to clients with a wide-array of acute and chronic health problems. This challenging task requires arming nurses with advanced competencies of health literacy to effectively educate their clients. However, evidence about medical-surgical nurse’s health literacy-related knowledge and experience is limited. Purposes: This study aimed to determine the level of the health literacy-related knowledge and experience among medical-surgical nurses. Design: A descriptive-cross-sectional study was conducted among a total sample of 177 nurses who were practicing in medical-surgical wards in teaching hospitals in Iraq. A convenience sampling method was used to select the participants. Data were collected using the Health Literacy Knowledge and Experiences Survey-2 (HLKES-2). Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test were used for data analysis. Results: The majority of nurses (92.3%) had a low level of knowledge regarding health literacy and more than half of the participants (58.7%) had an acceptable level of experience. Conclusion: Nurses’ information about health literacy needs to be updated via continuous education to enhance their knowledge and practice regarding this aspect.

Keywords

• adult nursing
• adult patient education
• health communication
• health literacy assessment
• nurse’s knowledge