Health literacy in psychiatric health care—state of the art in the world and Poland. Literature review

This article aims to present differences in approaches to health literacy in psychiatric health care in accordance with the current state of knowledge worldwide and in Poland. The literature was analysed and critiqued. For this purpose, a non-systematic literature review was conducted using scientific databases: Google Scholar, ScienceDirect and PubMed. The Introduction highlights the critical role of health literacy in psychiatric care and formulates two research questions. Within the theoretical framework of health literacy, three areas were defined: health literacy, public health literacy and mental health literacy. The literature review results are then presented, and their implications are discussed. The literature analysis indicates that health literacy is a multifaceted issue that must be disseminated within Poland’s psychiatric care. The stated research objective and consideration of the mental health literacy concept in the context of Polish psychiatric care should first be regarded as an appropriate research tool for assessing the level of mental health literacy.