Abstract 1606P
Background
Low health literacy (HL) can impair cancer patients’ comprehension and adhesion to treatments, causing poorer oncological outcomes. We aimed to characterise the HL levels of cancer patients, their perception about the information received, and which variables might impact it.
Methods
We conducted a single centre prospective study, recruiting adult patients with solid tumours, receiving any line of antineoplastic treatment at Day Hospital between June and December of 2021. HL levels and patients’ perception about the information received were assessed by the European Health Literacy Survey and by the EORTC QLQ-INFO 25 (INFO25), respectively. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the variables that might influence the global score obtained on INFO25.
Results
We included 104 patients, with a mean age of 52 ± 10.4 years. The majority of patients had breast cancer (n=54; 51.9%) and was being treated with curative intent (n=64; 61.5%). The mean score of general HL in our patients was 33.6 ± 0.67, which is near the lower limit to be considered as sufficient literacy. Forty-eight percent, 44%, 66% and 60% of the patients presented inadequate or problematic general HL, health care (HC) literacy, health promotion literacy and disease prevention literacy, respectively. Our patients revealed a good perception of the amount of information received, with an overall mean score of 60.9 ± 14.9. Female gender and high levels of HC literacy were found to significantly contribute to a better perceived information by our patients (R2 a = 0,229).
Conclusions
To our best knowledge this was the first study aimed to characterize the health literacy levels of Portuguese cancer patients. Our study revealed that a significant proportion of cancer patients presented limited levels of HL, and identified low levels of HC literacy and male gender as negative contributors to the patients’ perceived information. This knowledge is important to improve our daily practice, by developing strategies suited to our reality, with the main goal of improving the comprehension and use of health information by our patients and, in that way, cultivating the shared decision-making process.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.