ArticleThe Journal of surgical research2021
"What Are My Injuries?" Health Literacy and Patient Comprehension of Trauma Care and Injuries.
Article in The Journal of surgical research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Health literacy and patient outcomes in acute care surgery: A systematic review.The journal of trauma and acute care surgery · 2026Pooled it
- Lost in translation? Comprehension of care for English-speaking vs. Spanish-speaking trauma patients.Trauma surgery & acute care open · 2025Article
- Assessment Tools for Measuring Health Literacy and Digital Health Literacy in a Hospital Setting: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTrauma patients often have complex injuries treated by multidisciplinary providers with wide-ranging expertise. We hypothesized that trauma patients would frequently incorrectly identify both their injuries and care teams. We also hypothesized that low health literacy level would be correlated with low levels of comprehension about injuries or care teams. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe performed a prospective study of adult trauma inpatients >18 years. Participants were surveyed to report on 1) injured body regions 2) their care teams, and 3) health literacy via a validated survey. Self-reported injuries and care teams were compared to the patient's medical record. We also studied whether health literacy was associated with patient knowledge of injuries and care teams.
resultsFifty participants were surveyed; thirty-two percent could not identify ≥50% of their injuries. Patients reliably identified injuries to the head, but injuries to other body areas were often misidentified. Forty-two percent of patients were not able to identify ≥50% of their medical teams, and 28% could not identify ≥75% of their medical teams. Patients often did not recognize teams such as nutrition, physical/occupationalt, or social work as part of their care. Thirteen participants reported adequate health literacy. Health literacy was not related to participant knowledge of injuries or care teams (both P = 0.9).
conclusionMany trauma inpatients were unable to correctly identify their injuries and care teams despite a range of self-reported health literacy scores.
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Registered trials
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