Health Literacy, EHealth Literacy and Their Association with Burden, Distress, and Self-efficacy Among Cancer Caregivers

Overview

Journal Front Psychol

Date 2024 Mar 4

PMID 38434952

Authors

Chloe Moore

Pamela Gallagher

Simon Dunne

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Purpose: Health literacy skills are vital for cancer caregivers in helping cancer survivors to navigate their diagnosis, treatment, and recovery but little is known. This study explored health literacy and eHealth literacy among cancer caregivers and the relationship between health literacy/eHealth literacy and potential associated factors.

Methods: Informal caregivers who had cared for an individual with cancer completed a survey which collected demographic data and measured caregiver health literacy, eHealth literacy, self-efficacy, burden, and distress.

Results: Seven percent of caregivers had inadequate health literacy. Caregivers scored lowest on health literacy domains related to caregiver social support, information seeking and understanding care recipient preferences. eHealth literacy was associated with self-efficacy and burden while, different health literacy domains were associated with burden (''), self-efficacy ('' and '') and distress (', ', '').

Conclusion: Findings highlight key areas of need regarding cancer caregiver health literacy which future research can target. Given the observed relationship between aspects of health literacy and burden, distress and self-efficacy future work could be carried out on how to alleviate high levels of burden and distress and how to enhance self-efficacy among cancer caregivers by addressing health literacy skills.

Implications For Cancer Survivors: Findings from this study will inform the development of health literacy interventions to support caregivers to build their health literacy skills and enable this group to better support cancer survivors as a result.

Citing Articles

Adapting a Preparatory Skills-Building Programme for Carers of People With Cancer Through Co-Design: The iCanSupport Project.

Easpaig B, Newman B, Johnson J, Sansom-Daly U, Jones L, Hofstatter L Health Expect. 2024; 27(5):e70061.

PMID: 39415624 PMC: 11483551. DOI: 10.1111/hex.70061.

Assessing the association between quantity and quality of family caregiver participation in decision-making clinical encounters on patient activation in the metastatic breast cancer setting.

Henderson N, Padalkar T, Bourne G, Hendrix E, Williams C, Odom J Support Care Cancer. 2024; 32(7):422.

PMID: 38858225 PMC: 11164765. DOI: 10.1007/s00520-024-08593-1.

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