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Objective: Children of caregivers with limited health literacy are at risk of poorer health outcomes. Thus, health literacy-informed communication tools are critical to achieving a more equitable health system. However, there is no agreement on the health literacy skills pediatric residents should attain. We used Delphi methodology to establish consensus on health literacy objectives to inform development of a pediatric resident curriculum., Methods: Our Delphi panel participated in three rounds of anonymous surveys to rank the importance of health literacy objectives in pediatric resident education. Consensus was defined as ≥70% of panelists identifying an objective as essential or 100% agreeing an objective was recommended or essential., Results: Thirteen pediatric health literacy experts comprised a racially, geographically, and professionally-diverse panel. After three survey rounds, 27 of the initial 65 objectives met consensus. All final objectives aligned with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies., Conclusions: A panel of pediatric health literacy experts established consensus on health literacy objectives specific to pediatric resident training. These prioritized objectives align with ACGME core competencies, as well as evidence-based strategies like teach-back, and newer considerations like addressing organizational health literacy. They should inform future health literacy curricula and assessment within pediatric residency programs., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Authors have no declarations of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: This study compared the effectiveness of comic-based with text-based concussion discharge instructions on improving caregiver knowledge. This study also examined the role of social determinants of health on comprehension instructions., Methods: This was an observational study of the caregivers of pediatric concussion patients. Caregivers' health literacy and demographics related socioeconomic factors were obtained. After the patients' evaluation in the emergency department, caregivers were given printed comic-based concussion discharge instructions. Caregivers were contacted 3 days later and tested overall knowledge of discharge instructions' content. These survey results were compared with historical controls who received text-based instructions., Results: A total of 120 participants were recruited, and 86 participants completed follow-up procedures. When comparing the caregivers' recall ability with a comic-based vs traditional text-based instructions, caregivers with comic-based content were more likely to accurately recall overall discharge instructions (77.5% vs 44%, P < .001), particularly physical rest and activity restrictions (86.5% vs 63%, P < .001). Caregivers also were less likely to misidentify a red flag symptom (7.5% vs 19%, P < .04). Comic-based instructions did not increase recall of cognitive rest instructions or postconcussive symptoms. When examining demographic factors, caregivers who could not recall 3 postconcussive symptoms were more likely to be Hispanic or Black, less likely to be college educated, and more likely to have low health literacy., Discussion: Novel methods should be explored to adequately prepare caregivers for continuing postconcussive care at home. Discharge instructions must be tailored to address caregivers' baseline health literacy and how caregivers digest and retain information., (Copyright © 2022 Emergency Nurses Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Ensuring that health care professionals are knowledgeable about the influence limited health literacy has on health outcomes and how to apply health literate strategies is crucial to transform quality and safety in care settings. Although many organizational efforts to address health literacy have focused on hospital settings, few have focused on primary care. The designation of a patient-centered medical home requires the need to address integrating health literacy and the training needs of primary care settings. Brief description of activity: An interactive health literacy training intervention was developed, implemented, and evaluated for 25 primary care clinics. This included an online educational module, in-person application activities, and a sustainability plan to continue skill building, reinforce behaviors, and support practice., Implementation: Using a descriptive pre- and post-training design, three survey measures were used to rate health literacy knowledge, behaviors, and confidence levels of more than 475 primary care staff. A pre-training survey was completed prior to completion of an interactive online health literacy module and attendance at an in-person training session which followed. A post-training survey was then completed. Sustainment activities, including lunch and learns, and reinforcement activities by clinic leaders, were initiated to promote use of the strategies in practice. A 1-year follow-up survey was then administered to measure sustainability., Results: The interactive training intervention improved primary care staff's knowledge, behaviors, and confidence in using health literacy strategies with patients and families. Common barriers and facilitators around the use of these strategies were also identified., Lessons Learned: Careful consideration should be taken when developing health literacy training to ensure it will be effective, efficient, and sustainable. Using elements that facilitate the transfer of training to practice will help improve success. Addressing barriers and promoting facilitators, as well as integrating and connecting health literacy strategies with existing organizational goals and initiatives offer additional ways to reinforce and sustain the practice change. [ HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice . 2022;6(2):e113-e120.] Plain Language Summary: Clinic staff can improve how they provide information and education to children and families. Interactive training about health literacy led clinic staff to (1) know more about health literacy, (2) use health literacy strategies more, and (3) feel more confident using health literacy strategies. Training over time, supporting staff, and connecting to organizational goals are important for sustainment.

Objective: Though low literacy asthma education is effective at reducing emergency department (ED) use, few interventions are administered in the ED. The aim was to increase the number of parents of children with asthma receiving education in the ED to 50% receiving written and 30% receiving video education over 12 months., Methods: Using quality improvement methods, the team planned interventions including improvement of nursing workflow and availability of written and video education. Nurse champions performed peer-to-peer education regarding educational materials and health literacy-focused communication. An asthma education order opening the nursing flowsheet, which linked to written and video materials and documentation was created. The order was placed in highly used ED asthma order sets. The percent of parents receiving written or video education was followed on statistical process control charts. Balancing measures included: ED length of stay, discharge length, 30 day ED return visits, and 365 day return visits with hospitalization., Results: The mean number of parents receiving written education at baseline was 28% and improved to 52%. Special cause variation was noted after order roll-out. Video education increased from a baseline of 0% of parents receiving to 32% with special cause variation after order roll-out. No special cause was noted in balancing measures. Revisits with hospitalization within 365 days showed a decreasing trend after order roll-out., Conclusions: Implementation of workflow improvement, education, and the addition of a functional education order in an existing order set led to a meaningful improvement in distribution of a low literacy asthma education intervention., (Copyright © 2020 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Health literacy is an important issue to consider in the provision of health-care to children. Similar to the adult population, most parents face health literacy challenges. Of particular concern, 1 in 4 parents have low health literacy, greatly affecting their ability to use health information to make health decisions for their child. High expectations are placed on parents and children to achieve effective disease management and positive health outcomes in the context of complex health-care systems and disease treatment regimens. Low health literacy affects parent acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as child health outcomes across the domains of disease prevention, acute illness care, and chronic illness care. The effect of low health literacy is wide ranging, including 1) poor nutrition knowledge and behaviors, 2) higher obesity rates, 3) more medication errors, 4) more emergency department use, and 5) poor asthma knowledge, behaviors, and outcomes. Health-care providers can mitigate the effects of health literacy by seeking to align health-care demands with the health literacy skills of families. Effective health literacy-informed interventions provide insights into methods that can be used by providers and health systems to improve health outcomes. Health literacy-informed communication strategies should be used with all families in a "universal precautions approach" because all parents likely benefit from clear communication. As scientific advances are made in disease prevention and management, unless families understand how to follow provider recommendations, the benefit of these advances will not be realized and disparities in outcomes will be exacerbated., (© American Academy of Pediatrics, 2019. All rights reserved.)

Parents of children seeking nonurgent care in the emergency department completed surveys concerning media use and preferences for health education material. Results were compiled using descriptive statistics, compared by health literacy level with logistic regression, adjusting for race/ethnicity and income. Semistructured qualitative interviews to elicit reasons for preferences, content preference, and impact of health information were conducted and analyzed using content analysis. Surveys (n = 71) showed that despite equal access to online health information, parents with low health literacy were more likely to use the internet less frequently than daily ( P < .01). Surveys and interviews (n = 30) revealed that health information will be most effective when distributed by a health care professional and must be made available in multiple modalities. Parents requested general information about childhood illness, including diagnosis, treatment, and signs and symptoms. Many parents believed that appropriate health information would change their decision-making regarding seeking care during their child's next illness.

Objective: To explore the decision to seek care and decision-making regarding location of care among parents with low and adequate health literacy., Methods: Parents of children 8 years old or younger who presented for 'sick child' visits at a clinic or a nonurgent emergency department (ED) visit (triage level 5) were interviewed. The Newest Vital Sign was used to categorize parental health literacy. Interviewers followed a semistructured interview guide to understand: 1) care-seeking for current illness, and 2) choice of clinic or ED. Themes emerged using a grounded theory process, facilitated by NVivo version 10.0 software (QSR International, Melbourne, Australia). Themes included the experiences of low and adequate health literacy in the clinic as well as in the ED., Results: Fifty semistructured interviews were completed with parents who brought their child to the ED for a nonurgent visit (n = 30) and clinic parents (n = 20) with 56% possessing low health literacy. Parents with low health literacy were more inclined to overestimate severity of illness and seek care sooner to gain answers about the illness and treatment options, and visit the clinic only when an appointment was available within hours. Parents with adequate health literacy sought reassurance for their ongoing illness management and valued close relationships with their physician, and were willing to wait longer for an appointment. Fever, vomiting, and young child age prompted some parents to seek expedient care regardless of health literacy., Conclusions: Caregiving skills (eg, assessing and treating illness, understanding illness severity, and navigating the health care system) in addition to physician-parent relationships and perception of care seem to influence the behavior of parents managing their child's mild acute illness. These factors might be amenable to a future health literacy intervention., (Copyright © 2017 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To determine the association between health literacy, medication knowledge, and pain treatment skills with emergency department (ED) use of parents of children with sickle cell disease (SCD)., Methods: Parents of children 1- to 12-years-old with SCD were enrolled. Health literacy was assessed using the Newest Vital Sign. Parents completed a structured interview assessing knowledge of the dosage and frequency of home pain medications and an applied skills task requiring them to dose a prescribed pain medication. Underdosage was defined by too small a dose (dosage error) or too infrequent a dose (frequency error). The association between medication knowledge and applied skills with ED visits for pain over the past year was evaluated using Poisson regression adjusting for genotype., Results: One hundred parent/child pairs were included; 50% of parents had low health literacy. Low health literacy was associated with more underdose frequency errors (38% vs. 19%, P = 0.02) on the skills task. On medication knowledge, underdose dosage errors (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] 2.0, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-3.0) and underdose frequency errors (aIRR, 1.7, 95% CI 1.2-2.6) were associated with a higher rate of ED visits for pain. On the skills task, underdose dosage errors (aIRR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2-.4) and underdose frequency errors were associated with more ED visits (aIRR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1-2.1)., Conclusions: For medication knowledge and skills tasks, children of parents who underdosed pain medication had a higher rate of ED visits for pain. Health literate strategies to improve parents' medication skills may improve pain treatment at home and decrease healthcare utilization., (© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Objective: To test the hypothesis that the effect of race/ethnicity on decreased radiologic testing in the pediatric emergency department (ED) varies by caregiver health literacy., Study Design: This was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study of caregivers accompanying children ≤ 12 years to a pediatric ED. Caregiver health literacy was measured using the Newest Vital Sign. A blinded chart review determined whether radiologic testing was utilized. Bivariate and multivariate analyses, adjusting for ED triage level, child insurance, and chronic illness were used to determine the relationship between race/ethnicity, health literacy, and radiologic testing. Stratified analyses by caregiver health literacy were conducted., Results: Five hundred four caregivers participated; the median age was 31 years, 47% were white, 37% black, 10% Hispanic, and 49% had low health literacy. Black race and low health literacy were associated with less radiologic testing (P < .01). In stratified analysis, minority race was associated with less radiologic testing only if a caregiver had low health literacy (aOR 0.5; 95% CI 0.3-0.9), and no difference existed in those with adequate health literacy (aOR 0.7; 95% CI 0.4-1.3)., Conclusions: Caregiver low health literacy modifies whether minority race/ethnicity is associated with decreased radiologic testing, with only children of minority caregivers with low health literacy receiving fewer radiologic studies. Future interventions to eliminate disparities in healthcare resource utilization should consider health literacy as a mutable factor., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We examined the performance of the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) and the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (S-TOFHLA) in caregivers of children., Method: Caregivers of children ≤12 years old seeking care for their child in a pediatric emergency department (ED) were tested using the NVS and the S-TOFHLA to measure health literacy. The results were compared with ED use outcomes., Result: The S-TOFHLA was found to have a ceiling effect as compared to the NVS; few caregivers scored in low literacy categories (P < .0001). This finding was demonstrated in both lower (P = .01) and higher (P < .001) educational attainment groups. The NVS was predictive of ED use outcomes (P = .02 and P < .01) whereas the S-TOFHLA was not (P = .21 and P = .11)., Conclusions: The measures do not seem to function similarly nor predict health outcomes equally. The NVS demonstrates sensitivity in identifying limited health literacy in younger adult populations., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

Objective: To examine the association between caregiver health literacy and the likelihood of a nonurgent emergency department (ED) visit in children presenting for fever., Methods: This cross-sectional study used the Newest Vital Sign to assess the health literacy of caregivers accompanying children with fever to the ED. Visit urgency was determined by resources utilized during the ED visit. Findings were stratified by race and child age. Chi-square and logistic regression analysis controlling for race were conducted to determine the association between low health literacy and ED visit urgency., Results: A total of 299 caregivers completed study materials. Thirty-nine percent of ED visits for fever were nonurgent, and 63% of caregivers had low health literacy. Low health literacy was associated with a higher proportion of nonurgent ED visits for fever (44% vs 31%, odds ratio 1.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1, 2.9). Low health literacy was associated with higher odds of a nonurgent visit in white and Hispanic caregivers but not in black caregivers. In regression analysis, children ≥ 2 years old had higher odds of a nonurgent visit if caregivers had low health literacy (adjusted odds ratio 2.0; 95% CI 1.1, 4.1); this relationship did not hold for children <2 years old (adjusted odds ratio 0.8; 95% CI 0.4, 1.8)., Conclusions: Nearly two-thirds of caregivers with their child in the ED for fever have low health literacy. Caregiver low health literacy is associated with nonurgent ED utilization for fever in children over 2 years of age. Future interventions could target health literacy skills regarding fever in caregivers of children ≥ 2 years., (Copyright © 2014 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We sought to determine the association between low caregiver health literacy and child emergency department (ED) use, both the number and urgency of ED visits., Methods: This year long cross-sectional study utilized the Newest Vital Sign questionnaire to measure the health literacy of caregivers accompanying children to a pediatric ED. Prior ED visits were extracted from a regional database. ED visit urgency was classified by resources utilized during the index ED visit. Regression analyses were used to model 2 outcomes-prior ED visits and ED visit urgency-stratified by chronic illness. Analyses were weighted by triage level., Results: Overall, 503 caregivers completed the study; 55% demonstrated low health literacy. Children of caregivers with low health literacy had more prior ED visits (adjusted incidence rate ratio 1.5; 95% confidence interval 1.2, 1.8) and increased odds of a nonurgent index ED visit (adjusted odds ratio 2.4; 95% confidence interval 1.3, 4.4). Among children without chronic illness, low caregiver health literacy was associated with an increased proportion of nonurgent index ED visits (48% vs. 22%; adjusted odds ratio 3.2; 1.8, 5.7)., Conclusions: Over half of caregivers presenting with their children to the ED have low health literacy. Low caregiver health literacy is an independent predictor of higher ED use and use of the ED for nonurgent conditions. In children without a chronic illness, low health literate caregivers had more than 3 times greater odds of presenting for a nonurgent condition than those with adequate health literacy., (Copyright © 2014 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Low health literacy in parents can potentially impact understanding of a child's diagnosis and treatment course. No reviews have addressed parent health literacy in the emergency department (ED), the relationship between parent health literacy and child ED utilization, or the impact of low literacy interventions on child ED utilization., Objective: To systematically evaluate the peer-reviewed literature pertaining to parental health literacy and ED utilization. The following key questions were addressed: question (Q) 1) What is the prevalence of low health literacy, as estimated by validated health literacy measures, of parents in the ED? Q2) Is parent low health literacy related to ED use for children? Q3) Do low literacy interventions targeting parents likely to have low health literacy affect ED use for children?, Data Sources: The authors reviewed 483 unduplicated titles and abstracts published between 1980 and May 2012 using PubMed and CINAHL, with 117 retained for full review and 17 included in the final analytic review., Study Eligibility Criteria, Participants, and Interventions: All included articles had a valid measure of parent health literacy and a Q1) descriptive measurement of the population, Q2) ED utilization, or Q3) utilized a low literacy educational intervention., Study Appraisal and Synthesis Methods: One author extracted data verified by a second author. Studies were rated for quality by both authors., Results: Q1) A median of 30% (interquartile range 22-36%) of parents in the ED possesses low health literacy. Q2) Studies investigating the relationship between health literacy and ED yielded mixed results. Q3) Seven of 8 low literacy interventions were associated with a reduction in ED use. Random effects pooled odds ratios from 6 studies showed intervention effectiveness (odds ratio 0.35; 95% CI 0.15-0.81)., Limitations: No intervention studies measured health literacy, limiting the ability to determine whether the low literacy intervention targeted health literacy., Conclusions and Implications of Key Findings: Roughly 1 in 3 parents of children presenting to the ED have low health literacy. Importantly, interventions targeting parents likely to have low health literacy have an impact in reducing ED utilization., (Copyright © 2013 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)