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The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting

BACKGROUND: Multimorbidity is now acknowledged as a research priority in primary care. The identification of risk factors and people most at risk is an important step in guiding prevention and intervention strategies. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between literacy and multimo...

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Autores principales: Hudon, Catherine, Fortin, Martin, Poitras, Marie-Eve, Almirall, José
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22536833
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-33
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author Hudon, Catherine
Fortin, Martin
Poitras, Marie-Eve
Almirall, José
author_facet Hudon, Catherine
Fortin, Martin
Poitras, Marie-Eve
Almirall, José
author_sort Hudon, Catherine
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Multimorbidity is now acknowledged as a research priority in primary care. The identification of risk factors and people most at risk is an important step in guiding prevention and intervention strategies. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between literacy and multimorbidity while controlling for potential confounders. METHODS: Participants were adult patients attending the family medicine clinic of a regional health centre in Saguenay (Quebec), Canada. Literacy was measured with the Newest Vital Sign (NVS). Multimorbidity was measured with the Disease Burden Morbidity Assessment (DBMA) by self-report. Information on potential confounders (age, sex, education and family income) was also collected. The association between literacy (independent variable) and multimorbidity was examined in bivariate and multivariate analyses. Two operational definitions of multimorbidity were used successively as the dependent variable; confounding variables were introduced into the model as potential predictors. RESULTS: One hundred three patients (36 men) 19–83 years old were recruited; 41.8% had completed 12 years of school or less. Forty-seven percent of patients provided fewer than four correct answers on the NVS (possible low literacy) whereas 53% had four correct responses or more. Literacy and multimorbidity were associated in bivariate analyses (p < 0.01) but not in multivariate analyses, including age and family income. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that there is no relationship between literacy and multimorbidity when controlling for age and family income.
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spelling pubmed-33889512012-07-04 The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting Hudon, Catherine Fortin, Martin Poitras, Marie-Eve Almirall, José BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: Multimorbidity is now acknowledged as a research priority in primary care. The identification of risk factors and people most at risk is an important step in guiding prevention and intervention strategies. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between literacy and multimorbidity while controlling for potential confounders. METHODS: Participants were adult patients attending the family medicine clinic of a regional health centre in Saguenay (Quebec), Canada. Literacy was measured with the Newest Vital Sign (NVS). Multimorbidity was measured with the Disease Burden Morbidity Assessment (DBMA) by self-report. Information on potential confounders (age, sex, education and family income) was also collected. The association between literacy (independent variable) and multimorbidity was examined in bivariate and multivariate analyses. Two operational definitions of multimorbidity were used successively as the dependent variable; confounding variables were introduced into the model as potential predictors. RESULTS: One hundred three patients (36 men) 19–83 years old were recruited; 41.8% had completed 12 years of school or less. Forty-seven percent of patients provided fewer than four correct answers on the NVS (possible low literacy) whereas 53% had four correct responses or more. Literacy and multimorbidity were associated in bivariate analyses (p < 0.01) but not in multivariate analyses, including age and family income. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that there is no relationship between literacy and multimorbidity when controlling for age and family income. BioMed Central 2012-07-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3388951/ /pubmed/22536833 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-33 Text en Copyright ©2012 Hudon et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hudon, Catherine
Fortin, Martin
Poitras, Marie-Eve
Almirall, José
The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title_full The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title_fullStr The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title_short The relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
title_sort relationship between literacy and multimorbidity in a primary care setting
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3388951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22536833
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-33
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