Associations between health literacy, cognitive function and general literacy in people with schizophrenia attending community mental health clinics in Australia

Sumana Thomson; Cherrie Galletly; Christopher Prener; Suzanne Garverich; Dennis Liu; Alisa Lincoln

doi:10.1186/s12888-022-03901-7

Associations between health literacy, cognitive function and general literacy in people with schizophrenia attending community mental health clinics in Australia

BMC Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 7;22(1):245. doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-03901-7.

Authors

Sumana Thomson^{1

2}, Cherrie Galletly^{3

4

5}, Christopher Prener⁶, Suzanne Garverich⁷, Dennis Liu^{3

4}, Alisa Lincoln⁷

Affiliations

¹ Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, Adelaide, South, Australia. sumana.thomson@sa.gov.au.
² Adelaide Medical School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South, Australia. sumana.thomson@sa.gov.au.
³ Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, Adelaide, South, Australia.
⁴ Adelaide Medical School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South, Australia.
⁵ Ramsay Health Care (SA) Mental Health Services, Adelaide, South, Australia.
⁶ Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA.
⁷ Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.

Abstract

Background: Health literacy (HL) has been defined as the ability of individuals to access, understand, and utilise basic health information. HL is crucial to patient engagement in treatment through supporting patient autonomy, informed consent and collaborative care. In people with physical disorders, poor HL is associated with poor health outcomes, but less is known about HL in people with severe mental illness. This study aimed to assess HL and investigate the associations between education, cognitive function, general literacy, and HL in participants with schizophrenia attending community mental health clinics.

Method: Fifty-two outpatients with schizophrenia attending a public community mental health clinic in Adelaide, Australia completed the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults-Short Form (S-TOFHLA) along with tests of cognition, aural and reading literacy and numeracy including Digit Symbol Coding (DSC), verbal fluency, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV), Woodcock-Johnson III (Part 4 and 9) and the Lipkus numeracy scale. Sixty-one percent of participants were male. Participants had a mean age of 41.2 (SD 9.9) years and a mean of 11.02 (SD 1.5) years of education.

Results: The majority of participants had very poor aural and verbal literacy and poorer literacy correlated with fewer years of education. On the S-TOFHLA, 81% of participants had adequate HL; 6% were marginal and 13% were inadequate. There was a positive correlation between education and HL, with those with more years of education scoring higher for HL. There was also a significant association between better HL and better working memory and attention.

Conclusions: Consistent with previous research in schizophrenia, our participants had reduced educational attainment, aural and reading literacy and cognitive function compared to population norms. However, HL was better than expected given that previous research has found that people with psychiatric disorders tend to have lower HL, compared to the general population. This may reflect effective case management of our participants whilst attending the community clinics and supports ongoing research and intervention regarding HL in people living with mental illness.

Keywords: Aural literacy; Health education; Psychosis; Social determinants; Verbal literacy.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Cognition
Educational Status
Health Literacy*
Humans
Male
Mental Health
Schizophrenia* / therapy