Health Literacy:
Individuals' ability to find, process, and comprehend the basic health information necessary to act on medical instructions and make decisions about their health. Numerous studies have documented the degree to which numerous patients do not understand basic information or instructions related to general aspects of their medical care, their medications, and procedures they will undergo. The limited ability to comprehend medical instructions or information in some cases reflects obvious language barriers (e.g., reviewing medication instructions in English with a patient who speaks very little English), but the scope of the problem reflects broader issues related to levels of education, cross-cultural issues, and overuse of technical terminology by clinicians.
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