Nurse practitioners' knowledge, experience and intention to use health literacy strategies in practice

Low health literacy in patients has been shown to result in poorer patient outcomes. Most health literacy research has focused on patients’ health literacy and interventions to mitigate the impact of low health literacy. Little is known about providers’ knowledge of health literacy, experience with health literacy strategies or their intention to use health literacy strategies in practice. This descriptive correlational study investigated the knowledge, experience and intention to use health literacy strategies in a sample of nurse practitioners (NPs) who work in outpatient settings. Results included low overall knowledge regarding health literacy and health literacy strategies. Most NPs used written material to educate patients, regardless of literacy levels. Two statistically significant correlations were found between demographics and experience with health literacy strategies. A statistically significant difference was found between experience scores of post-master’s certificate prepared NPs and doctorally prepared NPs (p = 0.039). and between experience scores of NPs working in specialty practices and those working in episodic urgent care settings (p = .008). Overall the intention of the NPs to use health literacy strategies was found to be strong. Study results suggest the following: increase NPs’ knowledge of health literacy (HL) by including HL in both pre-licensure curriculum and post-licensure continuing education; standardize written patient education materials to low HL appropriate levels as well as develop patient education materials in other formats for NP use, and support the strong intention of NPs to use health literacy strategies by providing resources, support, and opportunities to practice.