An online survey to study the relationship between patients’ health literacy and coping style and their preferences for self-management-related information

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate patients’ preferences for message features and assess their relationships with health literacy, monitor–blunter coping style, and other patient-dependent characteristics. METHODS: Patients with coronary heart disease completed an internet-based survey, which assessed health literacy and monitor–blunter coping style, as well as various other patient characteristics such as sociodemographics, disease history, and explicit information preferences. To assess preferences for message features, nine text sets differing in one of nine message features were composed, and participants were asked to state their preferences. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 213 patients. For three of the nine text sets, a relationship was found between patient preference and health literacy or monitor–blunter coping style. Patients with low health literacy preferred the text based on patient experience. Patients with a monitoring coping style preferred information on short-term effects of their treatment and mentioning of explicit risks. Various other patient characteristics such as marital status, social support, disease history, and age also showed a strong association. CONCLUSION: Individual differences exist in patients’ preferences for message features, and these preferences relate to patient characteristics such as health literacy and monitor–blunter coping style.