Can you help me take care of my health? Exploring the role of patients’ health literacy to improve the prevention and management of chronic kidney disease

Imagine living in a world where understanding your own health is like deciphering a complex code, where every medical decision feels like navigating a labyrinth. This is the reality for countless individuals worldwide struggling with low health literacy. People with low health literacy have difficulties understanding and using information related to their own health, especially concerning diseases, like chronic kidney disease (CKD). Low health literacy also complicates communication between patients and healthcare professionals, leading to challenges in providing adequate care. As a result, low health literacy can lead to worse health for patients and higher costs for the healthcare budget. In this thesis, we aimed to understand how low health literacy affects CKD and devise solutions to improve the care of people with low health literacy. We discovered that low health literacy is linked to the development of CKD and its complications, and that CKD patients with low health literacy have a higher number of chronic diseases. To address these issues, we developed and evaluated an intervention for CKD patients with low health literacy and their healthcare professionals. The intervention yielded positive results: improvements in the quality of consultations, the communication skills of healthcare professionals, and patients' health. Moreover, we found that implementing the intervention in the Netherlands would lead to substantial savings for the healthcare budget. Based on our findings, we recommend raising awareness about the challenges associated with low health literacy. Healthcare organizations should consider implementing our intervention and incorporating it into health guidelines and reimbursement schedules.