Low health literacy impact on headache diagnosis

Health literacy has a broad range of impacts, including whether and where a person seeks treatment and how well that patient interprets and applies clinical recommendations. Patients with headache may not seek treatment, may fail to disclose even severe pain to their physician, and may not understand or adhere to treatment. Universal precautions can be a helpful initial approach, and information styles can be modified as needed over time. Patients should be asked about headache and explanations about headache causes and treatment should be given in everyday language. The teach-back method can confirm if patients understand instructions. Health literacy can impact how patients perceive their headaches and how well they adhere to treatments. Health literacy is a two-way street; it depends on the patient’s ability to understand and act on clinical information and the clinician’s ability to give clear information. Language and cultural barriers can adversely impact health literacy, even in patients who otherwise have good understanding of medical advice. While health literacy can impact outcomes, those with low or very high health literacy are most likely to be non-adherent, albeit for different reasons. Clinical action plans can be valuable for those with severe headache. Health literacy refers to those skills that impact how well a patient can understand a medical condition, clinical advice, and adhere to treatment. Health literacy starts with the ability of a person to access the healthcare system to seek treatment in the first place, then the ability to understand the medical condition, and finally the ability to comprehend and act on physician advice or recommended treatments. The best approach for clinicians is to assume that patients have low health literacy and adjust their communications style over the course of the clinic visit. Low health literacy does not necessarily mean the patient is not literate or ill-informed, only that they may not be familiar with medical explanations as to the mechanisms of their condition and how to treat it. Language and cultural barriers can also decrease the ability to understand and act on medical information. Headache is a very common condition, but not all patients seek treatment even when the headaches are frequent or severe. There are many types of headaches and diagnosing them requires careful consideration of pain locations, symptoms, pain descriptions, and other factors. This often requires a detailed patient interview. There are many myths about headache that may influence what patients believe about headache, their causes, and how to manage them.