Authors (including presenting author) :
Dr Kam Ting Ting, Dr Denise Tam, Dr Jenny Wang, Dr Alfred Kwong, Dr Welchie Ko
Affiliation :
Department of Family Medicine & Primary Healthcare, QMH
Introduction :
Health literacy is defined as “the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process and understand health information and services in order to make appropriate health decisions”. It is important for Primary Care doctors to have the knowledge, skills and right attitude in managing patient with low health literacy because low health literacy is associated with numerous adverse health-related outcomes. In Hong Kong, there was no local study investigating doctors’ understanding on health literacy in the past.
Objectives :
To find out the understanding of health literacy among Primary Care Doctors and their acceptance of training so as to pave the road for future training.
Methodology :
An interview guide written in English was designed to assess the doctors’ understanding of health literacy. 16 purposively sampled primary health care doctors currently working in the General Outpatient Clinic (GOPC) were recruited. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in Cantonese and English. The interviews were tape recorded, which were then transcribed and analyzed using a grounded theory approach.
Result & Outcome :
Results: The awareness and understanding of health literacy among the Primary Care doctors in Hong Kong was inadequate. Their acceptance on future health literacy training was high as they lacked such training before and hoped to improve communication and patient care. Conclusion: The finding of lack of awareness and understanding of health literacy among the participants signify a need for future training so as to improve patient management and communication.
Co-location with:
