Timothy A Skyring, Kylie J Mansfield* and Judy R Mullan
Context: Following a diagnosis of prostate cancer men need to be able to read, understand and take action based on information accessed if they are to take part in the decision making process about their treatment options. However much of this information is written at a level beyond the health literacy of this group of men. Objectives and design: By means of cross sectional survey this study investigated the health literacy of men diagnosed with prostate cancer and the information sources they accessed. The readability, understand ability and actionability of prostate cancer information sources were also assessed. Results: Responses were received from 151 men (44% response rate), with a median age of 67 years, 21% with inadequate health literacy and most of whom had chosen surgery as their active treatment (56%). The majority of the respondents (80%) accessed four or more different information sources. The majority of information sources available were written above the recommended readability level (grade 8 or below), and had low ‘actionability’ scores (30%-50%) which were well below the recommended 70%. Conclusion: Men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer often access information sources which are difficult to read, understand and take action upon. Clinicians, health authorities and non-government organisations must be made aware of the variable, but overall low, health literacy of men and work with consumer groups to develop good quality information that is readable, understandable and actionable thereby allowing men to have a better understanding of their treatment options and to be more involved in the decision making process. Keywords: Prostate cancer; Health literacy; Patient information; Readability and understandability; Action ability
Published Date: 2022-02-23; Received Date: 2022-01-26
