Introduction

Health literacy refers to an individual’s capacity to gather, process and understand health information, make appropriate health decisions, and engage adequately with healthcare services. Inadequate health literacy has been linked to an increase in acute healthcare utilisation. Research suggests that people living with substance use disorders also access acute healthcare services at high rates. The study investigates whether overall health literacy is related to this population’s use of general healthcare services.

Methods

A total of 568 participants were recruited from residential substance use treatment services located in NSW, Australia, as part of a randomised controlled trial; the Continuing Care Project. All participants completed a face-to face baseline questionnaire, which included the Health Literacy Questionnaire; a measure of multidimensional health literacy. Latent profile analysis was used to examine health literacy profiles, with multinominal regression analysis examining if healthcare service utilisation was related to these profiles.

Results

Three profiles of health literacy were identified and termed lowest (n = 86, 15.1%), moderate (n = 338, 59.5%) and highest health literacy (n = 144, 25.4%). The sample accessed both primary and acute healthcare services at high rates. When controlling for demographic variables, there were no significant differences identified between health literacy profiles and service use.

Discussion/Conclusions

This study was the first to use a multidimensional health literacy tool to examine health literacy and general healthcare service utilisation for people attending residential substance use disorder treatment. This population access high levels of healthcare services, however the role that health literacy may play in helping reduce acute healthcare use requires further investigation.

中文翻译：

---

进入住宅酒精和其他药物治疗前 12 个月的健康素养和医疗保健服务使用情况

介绍

健康素养是指个人收集、处理和理解健康信息、做出适当的健康决定以及充分参与医疗保健服务的能力。健康素养不足与急性医疗保健利用率的增加有关。研究表明，患有物质使用障碍的人也可以高频率地获得急性医疗保健服务。该研究调查了整体健康素养是否与该人群对一般医疗保健服务的使用有关。

方法

作为随机对照试验的一部分，共有 568 名参与者从位于澳大利亚新南威尔士州的住宅物质使用治疗服务机构招募；持续护理项目。所有参与者都完成了面对面的基线问卷，其中包括健康素养问卷；多维健康素养的衡量标准。潜在概况分析用于检查健康素养概况，多项回归分析检查医疗保健服务利用是否与这些概况相关。

结果

确定了三种健康素养概况，并将其称为最低 ( n  = 86, 15.1%)、中等 ( n  = 338, 59.5%) 和最高健康素养 ( n  = 144, 25.4%)。该样本以高比率获得初级和急性医疗保健服务。在控制人口统计变量时，健康素养概况和服务使用之间没有显着差异。

讨论/结论

这项研究是第一个使用多维健康素养工具来检查参加住宅物质使用障碍治疗的人的健康素养和一般医疗保健服务使用情况的研究。这些人可以获得高水平的医疗保健服务，但是健康素养在帮助减少急性医疗保健使用方面可能发挥的作用需要进一步调查。