Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Abstract

In South Africa, most patients with chronic illnesses who are also of low socio-economic background are seen by clinical nurse practitioners with the support from doctors in the public health sector. The majority of these patients have low levels of health literacy – and this may affect their understanding of their illness as well as their treatment. Therefore, nurses have a crucial role to play in promoting health literacy of patients under their care to enable them to self-manage their conditions and for improved health outcomes. Low health literacy pose some challenges for the health care system and a burden for nurses because of unnecessary follow up visits especially in the public health sector which is poorly resourced. This paper shares insights from observations of clinical encounters between Xhosa speaking patients with epilepsy and health care practitioners which were conducted in a chronic illness clinic that provides care for patients with epilepsy in Cape Town, South Africa. It highlights the importance of taking into consideration cultural factors that may affect health literacy of patients. It argues that there are opportunities to promote health literacy in any clinical encounter. The paper asserts that a collaborative multi-disciplinary team work can enable achievement of this objective. However, this can be done if nurses and other health care practitioners have skills in health literacy.

Biography

Email: johannah.keikelame@gmail.com