SKT2LIt review for nursing research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

SKT2LIt review for nursing - Research Paper Example The physician may have coined this leads to increased cases of alteration of the original medical instruction as. The increased lawsuit cases against healthcare institutions charged with malpractices is attributed to patient’s inability to process and comprehend medical information from nurses (Nutbeam, 2000). This problem therefore affects the administration of nursing facilities as it does the nurses and the patients due to the financial commitments they have to make during these lawsuits. Health literacy among patients is thus a problem whose impacts affect a wide group of individuals with impacts that can cost a life, affect the image of a facility or even break the career of a nursing professional. Based on the impacts of this problem, the formulation of solutions and methods of improving the literacy levels of patients should be developed promptly. The complexity of health issues continue to rise and this makes it significant to create methods of providing prompt solutio ns to the problem to help mitigate the impacts that it has in the nursing profession and the entire health profession (Scheckel, Emery and Nosek, 2010). Symptoms of problem Health literacy has no direct correlation with educational literacy as many may believe and this has resulted into lack of development of proper methods of addressing the problem. Understanding medical terms and instructions require a medical background, which is only available among the health workers. To help cushion nurses from taking responsibility for health related errors committed by patients, there is increased need to evaluate ways of improving health literacy among the general population. This will also help reduce the number of lawsuits against health facilities for mistakes committed because of low literacy levels of the patients, a situation that the hospital administration may lack proper ability to solve (Baker, 2006). There is a lot of evidence to illustrate the grave consequences of low health li teracy levels among residents of the United States and how this affects the general nursing profession. The lack of limited health vocabulary among patients compounded by facile use of medical terms by nursing professionals is responsible for increased health illiteracy and complications. A number of empirical evidence available in the country demonstrates the impacts of health literacy level on improved patient’s care. In the early 80s, patients in the United States who were diagnosed with asthma were given instructions to take theophylline regularly and to ensure diligence in following appointments as made by the nurses (Baker et al., 2002). According to Gormley-Fleming and Campbell (2011) the theophllyne prescription given to the patients were written scientifically and thus required a certain level of literacy for the patients to understand. The level of patient literacy at this time was attributed to the increased development of theophylline resistance among the general population attributed to lack of clear adherence to the instructions. Today, patients are given instructions to monitor their own disease using a peak flow meter, while making selections and correct use of appropriate inhalers. Further instructions may require the patients to augment the therapies with oral doses of steroid to help exuberate their asthma. Understanding this kind of instructions require advanced literacy levels among patients as any single omissions done has dire consequences