Identifying Older Adult Orthopedic Patients’ Learning Styles for Tailored Communication and Health Literacy

Effective patient communication supports health literacy, treatment compliance, and health outcomes. This study examined whether older adult orthopedic patients’ learning style modality preferences differ from general population norms and characterized their multimodal communication preference profiles to inform tailored provider–patient interactions. Using the Barsch Learning Style Inventory (BLSI), 57 English-speaking male orthopedic patients (50+ years) in a semi-rural Northern California practice were assessed. Primary learning modality distributions (n = 50 with single primary preferences) differed significantly from the BLSI theoretical norms using an exact multinomial goodness-of-fit test (p = 0.048), with fewer auditory learners and more kinesthetic learners than expected. Hierarchical analysis of full four-modality (quadrimodal) profiles revealed a pronounced visual-first dominance: visual appeared as the top-ranked modality in 68% of patients (34/50), significantly exceeding equal expectation (χ²(3)=53.52, p < .0001; Cramér’s V ≈ 0.60), indicating a large effect. Trimodal profiles—Visual-Kinesthetic-Auditory (18%), Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic (16%), and Visual-Auditory-Tactile (14%)—emerged as the most common structured preference patterns. These findings provide a clear clinical directive for orthopedic practices with these patient profiles: lead with visual materials to align with the strong visual-first preference, then layer secondary and tertiary modalities based on individual trimodal profiles to meet the unique needs of this patient sample.