Essay - Research Proposal Relation Between Health Literacy and Glycemic Control in...

Research Proposal

Relation Between Health Literacy and Glycemic Control in Patients with Diabetes

Background

Health literacy is def*****ed as the ability of patients to be able ***** "read, comprehend, and act on medical instructions" (Schillinger et al., 2002, p. 475). Therefore it is possible that those w*****h poor health ***** may be ***** to ***** ***** which ********** are given, but may have difficulty in comprehending ***** therefore applying these instructions.

***** has already been some research conducted into the impact which health literacy levels may have on health behaviors, and specifically c*****trol of type 2 diab*****es. Schillinger and colleagues (2002) measured the health ***** of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking type 2 diabetics using the TOFHLA system. Their study indicated that impaired health literacy was associated with worse glycemic control. In contrast to ***** findings, Kim and ***** (2004) compared ***** control as measured by HbA1c levels ***** ***** literacy as me*****ured by the TOFHLA system and found there to be no association.

Clearly, some ***** this information is contradictory, and it remains unclear as to the effect of health literacy on control ***** type 2 dia*****tes. The problem ***** fur*****r exacerbated by the instruments used in these studies, as while the ***** system is available ***** both Spanish ***** English, it is long and time consuming. A new instrument called the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) has been developed which is based on a series of six questi*****s about an accompanying nutritional label. Th***** is designed to take only three minutes to administer ***** correlates with the TOFHLA system (Weiss et al., 2005).

Statement of ***** Research Problem

The ***** which will be investigated is wh*****her there ***** an ***** *****tween lower levels ***** health literacy ********** poor glycemic control as measured by the NVS *****. It is anticipated ***** ***** diabetic patients with poor glycemic control will correlate with those patients with low levels of health literacy (Safeer & Keenan, *****).

Study Aims and Objectives

***** aim of ***** research is to produce a cross-section*****l ***** ***** ***** ***** Spanish speaking diabetic patients from the Ful*****n Family Practice center and assess whether there is any correlation between ***** of health literacy ***** glycemic *****. Th***** will be achieved by meeting the following objectives:

Measure levels of health literacy in the study sample

Ga*****r data on levels ***** glycemic control in study *****

Conduct statistical analyses on the ***** to test for associati*****s

Compare the results to those achieved with other instruments available for measuring health literacy

Proposed Methodology

Study Population

The study population ***** be all English-speaking and *****-speaking ***** 2 diabetic patients attending the Fulton Family Practice center between January and May 2009. As the ***** is intended to be cross-sectional, a sample of size 200 will be taken from this study population.

Study Instruments

Health ***** ***** be evaluated using ***** ***** Vital Sign (*****), which is a questionnaire available in both English and Spanish. The questionnaire consists of ***** questions ***** measure the ability of the individual