TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - Health literacy and recovery following a non-catastrophic road traffic injury
JO  - BMC public health
A1  - Gopinath, Bamini
A1  - Jagnoor, Jagnoor
A1  - Kifley, Annette
A1  - Pozzato, Ilaria
A1  - Craig, Ashley
A1  - Cameron, Ian D.
SP  - e1380
EP  - e1380
VL  - 22
IS  - 1
N2  - BACKGROUND: Health literacy (HL) is rarely addressed in rehabilitation research and practice but can play a substantial role in the recovery process after an injury. We aimed to identify factors associated with low HL and its relationship with 6-month health outcomes in individuals recovering from a non-catastrophic road traffic injury. <br><br>METHODS: Four hundred ninety-three participants aged ≥17 years who had sustained a non-catastrophic injury in a land-transport crash, underwent a telephone-administered questionnaire. Information was obtained on socio-economic, pre-injury health and crash-related characteristics, and health outcomes (quality of life, pain related measures and psychological indices). Low HL was defined as scoring < 4 on either of the two scales of the Health Literacy Questionnaire that covered: ability to actively engage with healthcare providers ('Engagement' scale); and/or understanding health information well enough to know what to do ('Understanding' scale). <br><br>RESULTS: Of the 493, 16.9 and 18.7% scored < 4 on the 'Understanding' and 'Engagement' scale (i.e. had low HL), respectively. Factors that were associated with low HL as assessed by both scales were: having pre-injury disability and psychological conditions; lodging a third-party insurance claim; experiencing overwhelming/great perceived sense of danger/death during the crash; type of road user; low levels of social satisfaction; higher pain severity; pain catastrophizing; and psychological- and trauma-related distress. Low HL (assessed by both scales) was associated with poorer recovery outcomes over 6 months. In these longitudinal analyses, the strongest association was with disability (p < 0.0001), and other significant associations were higher levels of catastrophizing (p = 0.01), pain severity (p = 0.04), psychological- (p ≤ 0.02) and trauma-related distress (p = 0.003), lower quality of life (p ≤ 0.03) and physical functioning (p ≤ 0.01). <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: A wide spectrum of factors including claim status, pre-injury and psychological measures were associated with low HL in injured individuals. Our findings suggest that targeting low HL could help improve recovery outcomes after non-catastrophic injury.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1471-2458
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13707-7
ID  - ref1
ER  -