3.4 Health Literacy and Medication Admninstration V2
Health literacy is “the ability to access, understand, evaluate, and communicate information as a way to promote, maintain, and improve health in a variety of settings across the life course” (Rootman & Bihbety, 2008). According to the Canadian Public Health Association, 60% percent of adults in Canada find it challenging to obtain, understand, and act on health information or services in Canada (ABC Life Literacy Canada, n.d.).
When providing education around medications, nurses must ensure that the content is at an appropriate level for the client to understand the key concepts; it is also useful to appeal to multiple learning styles, such as writing it out, diagrams and other visuals, or recall. For more information about cultural safety, health literacy, and medication administration, you can review the following resources:
- The Centre of Literacy (n.d.b) offers an accredited online course on health literacy called Health Literacy: You talk to your patients but do they understand? The importance of health literacy in your practice (The Centre for Literacy, n.d.a).
- The BC Association for Child Development and Intervention (BCACDI, n.d.a) has an online repository with multiple free webinars and other resources on Indigenous cultural safety, which can be found on BCACDI’s (n.d.b) Indigenous Cultural Safety page.
Clinical Reasoning and Decision-Making
A nurse is providing client education to a mother regarding a liquid antibiotic prescribed for her child to take at home. The prescription states “Amoxicillin 250 mg 1 teaspoon (5 ml) every 8 hours for 7 days.” After talking with the mother, the nurse realizes the family does not have measuring spoons in their home.
What is the nurse’s best response?
Note: Answers to the Clinical Reasoning activities can be found in the “Answer Key” sections at the end of the book.
References
ABC Life Literacy Canada. (n.d.). What is health literacy? https://abclifeliteracy.ca/literacy/health-literacy/
BC Association for Child Development and Intervention. (n.d.a). Home. https://www.bcacdi.org/
BC Association for Child Development and Intervention. (n.d.b). Indigenous cultural safety. https://www.bcacdi.org/cultural-safety
The Centre for Literacy. (n.d.a). Accredited online course on health literacy. https://www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/news/accredited-hl-online-course
The Centre for Literacy. (n.d.b). Home. https://www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/
Rootman & Bihbety. (2008). A vision for health literate Canada: Report on the expert panel on health literacy [PDF]. Canadian Public Health Association. https://www.cpha.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/resources/healthlit/execsum_e.pdf
