title: Developing health professionals' health literacy competencies to support patients in diabetes self-management
Creators: name: Connell, Lauren
Publisher: name: University of Galway
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: Health literacy
subject: health professional education
subject: mixed methods research
subject: MRC framework
subject: Diabetes care
subject: Programme development
subject: Feasibility
subject: Medicine, Nursing, &amp; Health Sciences
subject: Health Sciences

description: Introduction Health literacy is an issue of global importance. There is a need for health literacy education for health professionals to improve patient outcomes. Health literacy education for health professionals is supported in the literature and policy development. Health Literacy refers to people’s ability to understand and use health information. In Ireland, 2 in 5 adults have been found to have limited health literacy skills, which has been shown to impact health outcomes. To address these issues, health professionals need to be able to communicate in a health literate way so information is accessible for health service users to access. When an individual has diabetes, self-management is essential in maintaining health where they need to have advanced skills. Therefore, if a health professional has the skills needed to provide information in a health literate way, there is the potential to improve the self-management skills of health service users. Aims This research project aimed to develop a health literacy education programme for health professionals, to help empower patients with diabetes in optimising self-management. Methods This was achieved by utilising a mixed methods approach, guided by the Medical Research Council’s framework for developing complex interventions. A novel health literacy education programme was developed using two stages of the framework: Programme development and Feasibility. Informed by a scoping review, and stakeholder engagement, an E-Delphi consensus and public and patient involvement, a prototype of the programme was developed, and feasibility tested. Results This study shows that there is a lack of current health literacy education programmes in existence for health professionals in diabetes care. Little is known about the detail of the reported interventions as information about content, delivery and instructional methods was limited. Using an E-Delphi consensus study, the components of a health literacy education programme were prioritised, and consensus was gained on the educational competencies, methods of delivery and educational techniques required to develop a novel health literacy education programme for health professionals in diabetes care. Feasibility results show that recruitment and retention was a challenge for the developed education programme. As a result of the implemented education programme, there was an increase in participant knowledge, gathering information, providing information, shared decision making and enabling self-management. There was a high intention to implement learned skills. Programme feedback was positive and constructive for future iterations. Conclusion Overall, an evidence based, and stakeholder informed education programme was developed for health professionals working in diabetes care. Although recruitment was on a small scale, learning took place when compared pre and post education and feedback from participants was positive and constructive in nature. The feasibility study demonstrated how an evaluation of the programme is not appropriate, and the education programme needs to be refined.