ArticleBMJ open2022
Low health literacy and multiple medications in community-dwelling older adults: a population-based cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Psychosocial factors associated with medication adherence among older adults with chronic diseases: an ITHBC-informed cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Economic, cultural and social inequalities in potentially inappropriate medication-An Austrian perspective.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2026Article
- Factors influencing safe use of drugs among community residents: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Article
- Exploring Older Adult Health Literacy in the Day-to-Day Management of Polypharmacy and Making Decisions About Deprescribing: A Mixed Methods Study.Health literacy research and practice · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesAdequate health literacy is important for patients to manage chronic diseases and medications. We examined the association between health literacy and multiple medications in community-dwelling adults aged 50 years and older in England. DESIGN, SETTINGS AND
participantsWe included 6368 community-dwelling people of median age 66 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Health literacy was assessed at wave 5 (2010/11) with 4 questions concerning a medication label. Four correct answers were categorised as adequate health literacy, otherwise low. Data on medications were collected at wave 6 (2012/13). To examine the difference in the number of medications between low and adequate health literacy, we used zero-inflated negative binomial regression, estimating odds ratio (OR) for zero medication and incidence rate ratios (IRR) for the number of medications, with 95% CIs. Associations were adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic and health characteristics, smoking and cognitive function. We also stratified the analysis by sex, and age (50-64 and ≥65 years). To be comparable with preceding studies, multinomial regression was fitted using commonly used thresholds of polypharmacy (0 vs 1-4, 5-9, ≥10 medications).
resultsAlthough low health literacy was associated with a lower likelihood of being medication-free (OR=0.64, 95% CI: 0.45 to 0.91), health literacy was not associated with the number of medications among those at risk for medication (IRR=1.01, 95% CI: 0.96 to 1.05), and this finding did not differ among younger and older age groups or women. Among men, low health literacy showed a weak association (IRR=1.06, 95% CI: 0.99 to 1.14). Multinomial regression models showed graded risks of polypharmacy for low health literacy.
conclusionsAlthough there was no overall association between health literacy and the number of medications, this study does not support the assertion that low health literacy is associated with a notably higher number of medications in men.
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