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Association of health literacy with diabetes outcomes.

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TLDR
Inadequate health literacy may contribute to the disproportionate burden of diabetes-related problems among disadvantaged populations and efforts should focus on developing and evaluating interventions to improve diabetes outcomes among patients with inadequate health literacy.
Abstract
ContextHealth literacy is a measure of patients' ability to read, comprehend, and act on medical instructions. Poor health literacy is common among racial and ethnic minorities, elderly persons, and patients with chronic conditions, particularly in public-sector settings. Little is known about the extent to which health literacy affects clinical health outcomes.ObjectivesTo examine the association between health literacy and diabetes outcomes among patients with type 2 diabetes.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsCross-sectional observational study of 408 English- and Spanish-speaking patients who were older than 30 years and had type 2 diabetes identified from the clinical database of 2 primary care clinics of a university-affiliated public hospital in San Francisco, Calif. Participants were enrolled and completed questionnaires between June and December 2000. We assessed patients' health literacy by using the short-form Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (s-TOFHLA) in English or Spanish.Main Outcome MeasuresMost recent hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level. Patients were classified as having tight glycemic control if their HbA1c was in the lowest quartile and poor control if it was in the highest quartile. We also measured the presence of self-reported diabetes complications.ResultsAfter adjusting for patients' sociodemographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, social support, treatment regimen, and years with diabetes, for each 1-point decrement in s-TOFHLA score, the HbA1c value increased by 0.02 (P = .02). Patients with inadequate health literacy were less likely than patients with adequate health literacy to achieve tight glycemic control (HbA1c ≤7.2%; adjusted odds ratio [OR], 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.32-1.00; P = .05) and were more likely to have poor glycemic control (HbA1c ≥9.5%; adjusted OR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.11-3.73; P = .02) and to report having retinopathy (adjusted OR, 2.33; 95% CI, 1.19-4.57; P = .01).ConclusionsAmong primary care patients with type 2 diabetes, inadequate health literacy is independently associated with worse glycemic control and higher rates of retinopathy. Inadequate health literacy may contribute to the disproportionate burden of diabetes-related problems among disadvantaged populations. Efforts should focus on developing and evaluating interventions to improve diabetes outcomes among patients with inadequate health literacy.

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References
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Journal Article

Intensive blood-glucose control with sulphonylureas or insulin compared with conventional treatment and risk of complications in patients with type 2 diabetes (UKPDS 33)

R C Turner, +398 more
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TL;DR: In this article, the effects of intensive blood-glucose control with either sulphonylurea or insulin and conventional treatment on the risk of microvascular and macrovascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes in a randomised controlled trial were compared.
Journal Article

Intensive blood-glucose control with sulphonylureas or insulin compared with conventional treatment and risk of complications in patients with type 2 diabetes (UKPDS 33). UK Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) Group.

TL;DR: The effects of intensive blood-glucose control with either sulphonylurea or insulin and conventional treatment on the risk of microvascular and macrovascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes in a randomised controlled trial were compared.

Intensive blood-glucose control with sulphonylureas or insulin compared with conventional treatment and risk of complications in patients with type 2 diabetes (UKPDS 33)

TL;DR: The effects of intensive blood-glucose control with either sulphonylurea or insulin and conventional treatment on the risk of microvascular and macrovascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes in a randomised controlled trial were compared.
Journal ArticleDOI

Screening for depression in well older adults: Evaluation of a short form of the CES-D

TL;DR: A short form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), derived and tested for reliability and validity among a sample of well older adults in a large Health Maintenance Organization, showed good predictive accuracy when compared to the full-length 20-item version.
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