Importance of Medication Reconciliation as a Strategy for Health Literacy

Health Literacy And Acp Model

Health literacy is the key for individuals to acquire knowledge, competences and motivation to better access, use, evaluate, interpretate and comprehend the health system. Doing so, they are able to make wiser choices in order to maintain a better health throw their life cycle, as well as to make decisions about their general life to improve the quality of life (Sørensen et al., 2012).

Having a better health literacy make individuals more capable of participating in disease prevention and health promotion. They become able to early disease detection, to a better disease management, to a better access and use of the health care system, and to a better therapeutic adherence. Ultimately, individuals with a higher health literacy may have a better quality of life.

In order to achieve this literacy level, individuals must count on health professionals – the “agents for change”, who provide trustful sources of information and health education, who break barriers and health myths.

Communication competences are vital to this process, though health communication is described as “interpersonal or mass communication activity aimed at improving the health status of individuals and populations”. To this end, it is necessary for the health professional to master specific communication techniques in order to facilitate the understanding of individuals and improve their health literacy (Nutbeam, 1998).

The main errors that lead to poor health communication are: lack of understanding of the contents; confusion in understanding the meaning of words; similar or very technical names of medicines or therapeutic products; misunderstanding of the guidelines given; unmonitored use of products; overly technical patient-professional relationship and without interpersonal investment. (Mendes Nunes, 2010).

Due to the demands of efficiency and productivity increasingly present in the health sector today, professionals have less and less time to communicate with their patients. In addition, medical education itself, historically paternalistic, promotes an asymmetrical relationship between the professional and the patients. The health professional and patient's own agendas are different in each encounter. All of these factors contribute to such communication errors. Therefore, it is essential for professionals to adopt specific techniques of language and non-verbal communication, which facilitate understanding by the patient, contributing to reduce the worrying reality of “more than 50% of the population having inadequate or problematic levels of health literacy.” (Espanha et al., 2016).

The ACP model – Assertiveness, Clarity (of language) and Positivity - congregates key communication competences which are essential to a good therapeutic relationship, patients’ confidence and higher therapeutic adherence.

Assertiveness can be related to clarity and objectivity that reinforce the essential information that the patient must know and understand. Clarity means that the health professional uses simple terms and accessible language, adapted to the target public. Positivity is focused on the action that the patient performs, which should have effectiveness (Belim & Almeida, 2018)