Improving Health Literacy in Patients with Diabetes

Description 500 Words Only double space. rewrite this article reference provided 500 words ONLY Improving Health Literacy in Patients with Diabetes Hazel Marie Morris Ashworth College Improving Health Literacy in Patients with Diabetes While at work, 63 year old Mr. Hernandez became ill experiencing symptoms of fatigue, blurred vision, and complaints of excessive thirst and hunger. This Hispanic male speaks a moderate amount of English; however, patient has poor reading skills, with difficulty interpretation and comprehension. He attended school but did not complete the 10th grade. Newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, he does not understand what the words mean relate to diabetic symptoms. The patient understanding of English is limited. In review of the article, “Improving Health in Patients with Diabetes” (Watts, 2017); this article provides a literature review about health literacy related to diabetes self-management and gives nurses evidence-based tools they can use to help patients overcome health literacy or numeracy issues. When combining limitations with lack of basic math skills (numeracy) and self-managed diabetes more complications can arise, such as severe hypoglycemic, can become very catastrophic that most nurses acknowledge. According to this article this patient did not meet the literacy criteria as evidence by his deficit in communicating, and understanding the information preventing him from identifying the complication of diabetes. The identified areas that require teaching and education, is on what the symptoms represent, for example, sweating could mean a hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) reaction. Three items are identified that need to be changed is; to utilize visual aids, a language translator, and to incorporate the patient’s culture with patient engagement. It is essential that health care providers understand that patients with low literacy skills can learn complex self-management protocols with clear instructions (Watts, 2017). One of the strongest predictors of health status is the patient’s health literacy level. Visual aids, such as cards or pictures, will help the patient in identifying his symptoms and the medications. The card will show a picture of a symptom, for example sweating (a picture of translation picture will have someone on the phone speaking in Spanish language. According to SMOG ( Blais & Hayes, 2011), this patient should be able to master the literature at a tenth grade level; however, the health care provider must be aware of and incorporate the patient’s culture and his engagement such as asking, can you recognize when you experiencing excessive thirst? How often should you take your medication? Conclusion In assessing the patient’s learning it is important that the health care provider assess their learning style, level of comprehension in how they learn. The patient must be given clear instructions according to their literacy and readability level for the patient to self-manage. Another important factor is that the health care providers are culturally competent while teaching and educating on the patient level. Reference Blais, K, K., & Hayes, J, S., (2011). Professional nursing practice, concepts and perspectives. (6th, ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson. Watts, S, (2017). Improving health literacy in patients with diabetes. Nursing2017: January 2017- 47 (1), 24-31. doi:10.1097/01. NURSE.0000510739.60928.a9.