What is it about?
Health literacy refers to one's ability to access, appraise and use information to maintain good health. The study reported in this article explored the health literacy of older adults and their discharge experience following open-heart surgery. It particularly focussed on each participant's length of hospital stay, hospital re-admission (if any), post-operative complications (if any) and coping in the immediate and medium-term post-discharge period, as well as their personal needs and requirements.
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Why is it important?
So far, no local or international research has explored the health literacy of older adults and their cardiac surgery post-operative discharge experience. This is in fact the first study to be looking into local health literacy-related issues and to be suggesting context-sensitive solutions which can ultimately pave the way for better understanding and development of this relatively new research area.
Perspectives
I have invested a lot of time and effort in this piece of work. Through it I managed to amalgamate my three main research interests, that is, health literacy, cardiac surgery, and patient education. I hope that this paper empowers healthcare professionals to ameliorate their discharge practices, thus enabling an optimal discharge experience of cardiac surgical patients.
Nadine Dimech
University of Malta
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The health literacy and patient discharge experience dyad after cardiac surgery: an exploratory study, British Journal of Nursing, November 2023, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjon.2023.32.21.1046.
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