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Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults
BACKGROUND: Health literacy among Japanese is often low, making it difficult for them to evaluate health information and make informed decisions. However, the health literacy scales applied measure the perceived difficulty of health-related tasks; they do not directly assess the specific skills need...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9344668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35918675 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13892-5 |
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author | Nakayama, Kazuhiro Yonekura, Yuki Danya, Hitomi Hagiwara, Kanako |
author_facet | Nakayama, Kazuhiro Yonekura, Yuki Danya, Hitomi Hagiwara, Kanako |
author_sort | Nakayama, Kazuhiro |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Health literacy among Japanese is often low, making it difficult for them to evaluate health information and make informed decisions. However, the health literacy scales applied measure the perceived difficulty of health-related tasks; they do not directly assess the specific skills needed to perform the tasks: the skills to judge the reliability of diverse information using evaluation criteria and implement rational decision-making. Therefore, the study objectives were to investigate the following issues using a nationwide survey in Japan. (1) When obtaining information, to what extent do people apply criteria for evaluating information to confirm its reliability; when making decisions, to what extent do they seek out available options and compare pros and cons based on their own values? (2) How strongly are such skills associated with health literacy and demographic characteristics? (3) What opportunities are available to learn these skills? METHODS: We conducted an online questionnaire survey using a Japanese Internet research company; 3,914 valid responses were received. The measures comprised health literacy (European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire), five items on information evaluation, four items on decision-making, and items on the availability and location of learning opportunities. We calculated Pearson correlations to explore the association of health literacy with information-evaluation and decision-making skills. Multivariate analyses were also conducted using these factors as dependent variables. RESULTS: Fewer than half (30%–50%) of respondents reported always or often evaluating information and engaging in decision-making. Health literacy was significantly and positively correlated with the specific skills of information evaluation and decision-making (r = .26 and .30, respectively) as were multivariate analyses (beta = .15 and .22, respectively). Over 40% of respondents had never learned those skills. The most common resources for learning the skills were the Internet and television; less-used resources were schools and workplaces. CONCLUSIONS: Both information-evaluation and decision-making skills were associated with health literacy. However, these skills are not sufficiently widespread in Japan because there are few opportunities to acquire them. More research is needed to raise awareness of the importance of such skills for improving health literacy and providing learning opportunities. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13892-5. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9344668 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93446682022-08-03 Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults Nakayama, Kazuhiro Yonekura, Yuki Danya, Hitomi Hagiwara, Kanako BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Health literacy among Japanese is often low, making it difficult for them to evaluate health information and make informed decisions. However, the health literacy scales applied measure the perceived difficulty of health-related tasks; they do not directly assess the specific skills needed to perform the tasks: the skills to judge the reliability of diverse information using evaluation criteria and implement rational decision-making. Therefore, the study objectives were to investigate the following issues using a nationwide survey in Japan. (1) When obtaining information, to what extent do people apply criteria for evaluating information to confirm its reliability; when making decisions, to what extent do they seek out available options and compare pros and cons based on their own values? (2) How strongly are such skills associated with health literacy and demographic characteristics? (3) What opportunities are available to learn these skills? METHODS: We conducted an online questionnaire survey using a Japanese Internet research company; 3,914 valid responses were received. The measures comprised health literacy (European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire), five items on information evaluation, four items on decision-making, and items on the availability and location of learning opportunities. We calculated Pearson correlations to explore the association of health literacy with information-evaluation and decision-making skills. Multivariate analyses were also conducted using these factors as dependent variables. RESULTS: Fewer than half (30%–50%) of respondents reported always or often evaluating information and engaging in decision-making. Health literacy was significantly and positively correlated with the specific skills of information evaluation and decision-making (r = .26 and .30, respectively) as were multivariate analyses (beta = .15 and .22, respectively). Over 40% of respondents had never learned those skills. The most common resources for learning the skills were the Internet and television; less-used resources were schools and workplaces. CONCLUSIONS: Both information-evaluation and decision-making skills were associated with health literacy. However, these skills are not sufficiently widespread in Japan because there are few opportunities to acquire them. More research is needed to raise awareness of the importance of such skills for improving health literacy and providing learning opportunities. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13892-5. BioMed Central 2022-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9344668/ /pubmed/35918675 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13892-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Nakayama, Kazuhiro Yonekura, Yuki Danya, Hitomi Hagiwara, Kanako Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title | Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title_full | Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title_fullStr | Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title_full_unstemmed | Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title_short | Associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in Japanese adults |
title_sort | associations between health literacy and information-evaluation and decision-making skills in japanese adults |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9344668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35918675 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13892-5 |
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