Nurses’ Perspectives on Health Education and Health Literacy of Older Patients

Abstract

In the context of population aging, enhancing the health of older patients has become an urgent issue for public health. Health education and health literacy need to be further understood from the healthcare providers’ standpoint to increase older patients’ effective application of such information into their daily lives. We aimed to further understand nurses’ perspectives on the education of older patients and their health literacy, as nurses are one of the frontline providers interacting with older patients. In total, 16 nurses and nurse practitioners who had 5 or more years of clinical experience participated. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews and emails. Data analysis followed the thematic analysis suggested by Braun and Clarke. Five themes emerged from the analysis, as follows: attitudes that are hard to change; physical and cognitive functional barriers to understanding teaching materials; family caregivers—surrogate vs. gatekeeper; major contexts that moderate the elderly’s health literacy; and strategies to enhance teaching effectiveness and health literacy. These findings illustrate the conditions pertinent to communication with older adults from the patients’, providers’ and healthcare delivery viewpoints. Systemic assistance and interventions specialized for older patients and their healthcare providers need to be developed and tested to improve clinical practice and patient health literacy.