Low healthcare literacy is likely to affect the healthy life of individuals in a country negatively. Nurses and medical personnel’s have a significant task in ensuring that they educate their patients so that they are informed about health matters. Most of the patients rely on the internet and magazines where they try to educate themselves about specific diseases. However, these sources at times are not reliable as some are just written by bloggers with self-interests. Others are not well explained, and the patients may not understand. There are different strategies that the nurses should adopt to educate their patients, which include the following.
Convey Different Critical Points During the Patient’s Visit
The nurses and doctors can pass some information to their patients during their usual visit (Sorensen, 2015). They may highlight the common illnesses that are related to the disease that the patient is currently suffering from.
Charts to Clarify Concepts
In hospitals, the nurses can put different pictures on the walls that have different messages on diverse diseases (Beauchamp, 2015). Patients passing through the hospital premises can have a look at the pictures and learn about various illnesses.
Creating a Welcoming Environment
Patients will feel free to ask questions to medical personnel’s who are friendly and ready to listen. Therefore, nurses should try and earn the trust of the patients so that the patients can open up to them (Schulz, 2013).
Encouraging Questions
Another strategy that the nurses can use to reduce health illiteracy is to encourage their patients to ask questions about any issue that they may be having. The nurses have a major role in ensuring that the patients are educated on matters of health (Sorensen, 2015). If there is no health education offered, it is likely that patients will suffer from diseases that would be prevented.