Family Oncology Caregivers and Relational Health Literacy

Joy V. Goldsmith and Sachiko Terui
Additional contact information
Joy V. Goldsmith: Department of Communication & Film, The University of Memphis, 235 Art & Communication Building, Memphis, TN 38152-3150, USA
Sachiko Terui: Department of Communication & Film, The University of Memphis, 235 Art & Communication Building, Memphis, TN 38152-3150, USA

Challenges, 2018, vol. 9, issue 2, 1-10

Abstract: Nearly one-third of the U.S. population provides unpaid, informal caregiving to a loved one or friend. Caregiver health literacy involves a complex set of actions and decisions, all shaped by communication. Existing definitions depict health literacy as individuals’ skills in obtaining, understanding, communicating, and applying health information to successfully navigate the health management process. One of the major problems with existing definitions of health literacy is that it disproportionately places responsibilities of health literacy on patients and caregivers. In this conceptual piece, we define and introduce a new model of Relational Health Literacy (RHL) that emphasizes the communicative aspects of health literacy among all stakeholders (patients, caregivers, providers, systems, and communities) and how communication functions as a pathway or barrier in co-creating health care and health management processes. Future directions and recommendations for model development are described.

Keywords: health literacy; family caregiver; communication; stakeholders (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A00 C00 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/9/2/35/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/9/2/35/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jchals:v:9:y:2018:i:2:p:35-:d:164532

Access Statistics for this article

Challenges is currently edited by Ms. Karen Sun

More articles in Challenges from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().