"One size does not fit all- Moving towards health literacy responsive rheumatology care"

Keywords: health literacy, health inequities, rheumatology, healthcare access

Despite years of efforts to reduce health inequities, significant gaps in health outcomes between (groups of) people continue to exist.

One way to narrow these gaps is to make sure healthcare services and systems fit the needs of those who need it most, by taking their health literacy needs into account. Health literacy constitutes the combination of personal competencies and situational resources needed for people to access, understand, appraise and use information and services to make decisions about health. It includes the capacity to communicate, assert and act upon these decisions.

This thesis investigated the health literacy needs of people with a rheumatic disease and involved patients and health professionals to ask them what they believed could be locally relevant solutions to the challenges related to health literacy. The research showed that diverse challenges exist, that health professionals find it difficult to intuitively recognise these challenges, that individualised solutions are needed (and possible!), and that this will require a conscious and collaborative commitment. Further research will be done to develop and implement identified solutions in practice.

Click here for the live stream.