A Novel Simulation Program for Interprofessional Health Literacy Training.

Effective communication with patients and between members of the health care team are important strategies to enhance health care outcomes. Despite the prevalence of low health literacy and associated risks in the population, health professionals are often not trained adequately in health literacy communication practices. The purpose of this pilot program is to determine if offering learners an opportunity to practice health literacy communication techniques in a simulated patient care team can increase skills, attitudes, and confidence in this important area of patient care. We implemented a novel, team-based interprofessional Objective Structured Clinical Examination (iOSCE) focused on health literacy. Evaluation took place on three levels: student self-assessment of health literacy communication skills and beliefs about interprofessional teamwork, standardized patient assessment of skills during the clinical encounter, and observer assessment of interprofessional teamwork. Statistically significant gains were seen in students' health literacy communication confidence, as well as beliefs, attitudes and understanding of interprofessional teamwork. The aim of this article is to describe our pilot health literacy iOSCE findings. This pilot shows that an OSCE is an effective assessment tool for a mix of health professional learners at different levels to demonstrate health literacy practices in an interprofessional teamwork environment. [HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice. 2023;7(3):e139-e143.].

Caregiver self-efficacy improves following complex care training: Results from the Learning Skills Together pilot study.

Family caregivers to persons living with dementia increasingly provide complex care tasks, though most (53%) do so without any training. "Complex care" includes medical/nursing tasks, as well as personal care tasks that require disease knowledge. Of the 67% of dementia caregivers who provide complex care, nearly half worry about making a mistake. To help caregivers feel more confident when providing complex care tasks, we developed and conducted a pilot study of the 4-week Learning Skills Together psychoeducation program (LST; N=35). Participants in LST reported high satisfaction with the program and found the information shared about complex care was easy to understand. Pre- and post-test data demonstrated improvements in mean caregiver self-efficacy at both 4-weeks and 8-weeks post-intervention (mean difference (MD)=1.0, SD= 1.6, p-value=0.004 and MD= 1.0, SD=2.2, p-value=0.038, respectively). Results demonstrate the potential for a brief psychoeducational program to prepare caregivers to provide complex care to persons living with dementia.