City Research Online

Abstract

Background: Assessment health literacy in people with cardiovascular health problems would facilitate the development of appropriate health strategies for the care and reduction of complications associated with oral anticoagulation therapy.

Aim: To evaluate the relationship between health literacy and health and treatment outcomes (concordance with oral anticoagulants, Normalized Ratio control and occurrence of complications) in patients with cardiovascular pathology.

Methods: Observational, analytic and cross-sectional study carried out on 252 patients with cardiovascular pathology (atrial fibrillation, flutter or valve prosthesis), aged 50–85 years, accessing primary care services in Valencia (Spain) in 2018–2019. Variables referring to anticoagulant treatment with vitamin K antagonists (years of treatment, adequate control, polypharmacy and occurrence of complications, among others) and health literacy (Health Literacy Questionnaire) were analysed.

Results: All dimensions of health literacy were significantly related to the level of education (p<0.02), social class (p<0.02), an adequate control of acenocoumarol (p<0.001), frequentation of health services (p<0.001), information by patients to health professionals about anticoagulant treatment (p<0.03), emergency care visits (p<0.001) and unscheduled hospital admissions (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Health literacy has a relevant influence on the adequate self-management of anticoagulation treatment and the frequency of complications. The different dimensions that comprise health literacy play an important role, but the “social health support” dimension seems to be essential for such optimal self-management.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Publisher Keywords:	Health Literacy, Anticoagulants, Acenocoumarol, Treatment Adherence and Compliance, Self-Management, Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reaction, Health Services
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine R Medicine > RT Nursing
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Nursing
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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