Presentation description

Health literacy significantly impacts patient behaviors and outcomes, particularly in medication adherence [citation]. When speaking with patients, doctors may at times lack patient centered communication (PCC) skills needed to properly communicate the importance of a patients' medication adherence in successful completion of a treatment plan. While national reports indicate only 12% of Americans have proficient health literacy skills, reports also indicate many adults have difficulty completing routine health tasks like understanding a medication label or being able to find their closest healthcare facility. What we don't know is what health literacy and medication adherence in the oncology-specific population looks like. Evaluating health literacy specific to medication adherence abilities is important to being able to improve medication management experiences among cancer patients and their caregivers. This is also of importance to improving PCC and long-term health literacy among vulnerable cancer patient populations.