Health literacy and recovery following a non-catastrophic road traffic injury

Bamini Gopinath*, Jagnoor Jagnoor, Annette Kifley, Ilaria Pozzato, Ashley Craig, Ian D. Cameron

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
64 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

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. 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). 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). 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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1380
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalBMC Public Health
Volume22
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 19 Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2022. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

  • health literacy
  • non-catastrophic injury
  • recovery
  • road traffic crash

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