The impact of health literacy on urologic oncology care.

Health literacy is the ability to access, comprehend, and act upon medical information to make health care decisions. In the United States, 12% of adults have proficient health literacy. Low health literacy has been associated with worse outcomes in several chronic medical conditions. In addition, low health literacy has been associated with longer hospital stays. In the urologic oncology literature low health literacy is associated with increased minor complications following radical cystectomy. There remains sparse data on health literacy and its impacts on prostate, kidney, testicular and penile cancer care. Going forward, in order to provide the best urologic oncology care to our patients it is critical to account for patients' health literacy status.

Urologic oncology. 2019 Jul 16 [Epub ahead of print]

Amy N Luckenbaugh, Kelvin A Moses

Department of Urology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN. Electronic address: ., Department of Urology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN.