Exploring Health Literacy: Web-based Genres in Disseminating Specialized Knowledge to Caregivers. The Case of Paediatric Neurological Disorders

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the discursive practices used in web-based informative materials in the specific context of a chronic disease, i.e. neurological disorders resulting in epilepsy, for liaising with caregivers of paediatric patients. The study centres on a corpus of webpages gathered from the websites of the major foundations dealing with paediatric neurological syndromes. From a methodological perspective, the study makes recourse to existing studies on the discursive practices that in the literature on knowledge dissemination are identified as being used to facilitate the layman’s access to specialized scientific knowledge. The overall results show that knowledge dissemination strategies used in the webpages under investigation offer cognitive tools to parents as caregivers in order to make them informed about their children’s disease. These webpages enhance caregiver health literacy and achieve the goal of caregiver empowerment, giving her/his greater control over decisions affecting her/his child’s health.

Keywords

• caregivers
• expert-to-lay communication
• health literacy
• specialized knowledge dissemination
• web-based genres