The effect of health literacy on patient outcomes in predialysis patients

This study was carried out as a randomized controlled study to determine the effect of health literacy on patient outcomes in predialysis patients. The research was carried out with a total of 90 predialis patients, 45 of whom were intervention and 45 control, who applied to the nephrology outpatient, who is in stage 3b and 4, between September 2020 and July 2021. Data were collected face-to-face using "Patient Information Form", "Patient Follow-up Form", "Turkey Health Literacy Scale-32", "Dialysis Symptom Index". As a nursing intervention to increase health literacy in the patients in the experimental group, individual face-to-face training was given twice. Patients were called at the fourth and eighth weeks for telephone counseling and follow-up. No intervention was made in the control group. Data were analyzed with t test, analysis of variance, Wilcoxon, Kruskal Wallis H, Mann Whitney U tests. In the intervention group, adequate health literacy of patients increased from 2.2%to 31.1%. With the increase in the health literacy level of the patients, a significant decrease was observed in the blood pressure values and the severity of the symptoms (p<0.05). After the training, THLS-32 total index and sub-dimension scores increased significantly (p<0.05). It was determined that there was a significant difference between the groups in the final follow-up DSI, THLS-32 total index and sub-dimension scores in terms of education level, income status, marital status and the place where most of life was spent (p<0.05). As a result; it was seen that the education given by the nurse to the predialysis patients increased the health literacy and this improved the patient outcomes.