By Christine Kuehn Kelly When Mark V. Williams, FACP, talks about illiteracy, he recalls a set of patient education brochures that were designed to help diabetic patients manage their illness. One patient, however, thought the picture portrayed a urine collection bottle. He thought the drawing meant you should drink your urine. Literacy experts say that it is critical to spend extra time with illiterate patients because they are less likely to be compliant and more likely to have been hospitalized recently. Those with low levels of literacy also frequently miss out on standard preventive care and screening.
Statistics bear that out.
A two-year study at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta found that the functionally illiterate were twice as likely to be hospitalized as study subjects with adequate literacy. Until someone has had a certain disease, they probably don't have the vocabulary to describe it. Illiteracy is widespread in the United States. According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, up to 44 million Americans are functionally illiterate, and another 50 million have only marginal reading skills. In other words, roughly half of the adult U.S. population has difficulty reading or trouble calculating numbers.