Introduction: Low health literacy (HL) is an obstacle to therapeutic patient education (TPE), especially for people in a vulnerable situation, who are also at greater risk of chronic illnesses and their complications. It therefore seems essential to rethink TPE programmes in order to ensure greater equity based on analysis of the characteristics of HL interventions and their possible relationships with TPE.
Methods: A scoping review of the literature was performed from November 2014 to January 2016 using the following search engines: MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, ERIC, OpenGrey, SUDOC, thèses.fr and BDSP and the following search terms: ?health literacy?, ?Littératie en santé?, ?literacy?, ?Littératie?, ?numeracy?, ?numératie?, ?compétence en santé? combined with the keywords: ?programme?, ?program?, ?intervention?, ?méthode?, ?method?, ?technique?, ?outil?, ?tool?.
Results: After selecting forty out of 206 studies, interventions were classified into two main types of specific interventions to promote comprehension of resources intended for patients and generally complex interventions designed to support and improve HL skills.
Discussion: While the level of health literacy has an impact on TPE programme accessibility, TPE programmes need to be made more accessible and TPE must constitute an opportunity to address health literacy needs via its own specific modalities. Creating partnerships between social/educational and health settings might be an effective strategy to strengthen the interrelationships between HL and TPE, as might training that prepares caregivers-educators to improve patient HL.
Conclusion: Interrelationships between HL and TPE are possible. Research should question the pedagogical modalities to be used to adapt TPE programs to the HL.