ArticleEuropean journal of public health2020
Impact of low health literacy on healthcare utilization in individuals with cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and mental disorders. A Danish population-based 4-year follow-up study.
Article in European journal of public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mental illness and health literacy in people with cancer: the Australian National Health Survey analysis.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Article
- The Effect of Informational Podcasts on Shared Decision-Making, Anxiety, and Patient Satisfaction in Hospital Visits: Intervention Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- The Role of Health Literacy in Cardiometabolic Disease among People with Serious Mental Illness.Community mental health journal · 2026Article
- The Impact of Care Delivered Through the Self-Management Promotion Model on Health Literacy Levels in Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Quasi-Experimental Research.Health literacy research and practice · 2026Article
- Identification of key influencing factors of health information literacy in COPD patients: a cross-sectional study using a random forest model.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2026Article
- Associations between self-reported depression and functioning across ICF domains: a Danish population-based study.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2026Article
- Exploring the relationship between education and academic ability in childhood with healthcare utilization in adulthood: findings from the Aberdeen Children of the 1950s (ACONF).European journal of public health · 2025Article
- Primary and Emergency Care Use: The Roles of Health Literacy, Patient Activation, and Sleep Quality in a Latent Profile Analysis.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The mediating role of health literacy in the relationship between trust in public health authorities and distrust in health systems.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Feasibility Testing of a Health Literacy Intervention With Adolescents and Young Adults in South Africa: The LifeLab Soweto Programme.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2024Article
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- Social Disconnectedness in Individuals with Cardiovascular Disease: Associations with Health Literacy and Treatment Burden.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2024Article
- Prison healthcare service use and associated factors: a cross sectional study in Northwestern Ethiopia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Levels of health literacy among people living with HIV in outpatient care: a cross-sectional study from Denmark.AIDS research and therapy · 2023Article
- Vaccination in the childhood and awareness of basic public health services program among internal migrants: a nationwide cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Evaluation of a New Performance-Based Health Literacy Measurement Tool for Individuals With Chronic Airways Disease.Respiratory care · 2023Article
- Validity and reliability of the swedish versions of the HLS-EU-Q16 and HLS-EU-Q6 questionnaires.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Health literacy and digital health information-seeking behavior - a cross-sectional study among highly educated Swedes.BMC public health · 2022Article
- Inequity in the healthcare utilization among latent classes of elderly people with chronic diseases and decomposition analysis in China.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrevious research from the USA has shown that low health literacy is associated with higher hospitalization rates and higher rates of emergency service use. However, studies in a European context using more comprehensive health literacy definitions are lacking. The aim was to study the impact of low health literacy on healthcare utilization in a Danish context.
methodsIn this prospective cohort study, baseline survey data from 2013 were derived from a large Danish health and morbidity survey and merged with individual-level longitudinal register data for a 4-year follow-up period. The study included people in the general population (n = 29 473) and subgroups of people with four different chronic conditions: cardiovascular disease (CVD) (n = 2389), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (n = 1214), diabetes (n = 1685) and mental disorders (n = 1577).
resultsIn the general population, low health literacy predicted slightly more visits to the general practitioner and admissions to hospital and longer hospitalization periods at 4 years of follow-up, whereas low health literacy did not predict planned outpatient visits or emergency room visits. In people with CVD, low health literacy predicted more days with emergency room visits. In people with mental disorders, difficulties in actively engaging with healthcare providers were associated with a higher number of hospital admission days. No significant association between health literacy and healthcare utilization was found for diabetes or COPD.
conclusionsEven though Denmark has a universal healthcare system the level of health literacy affects healthcare use in the general population and in people with CVD and mental disorders.
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