The Necessity of Health Literacy in the Nursing Unit for Patient Education and Follow-up

Effective care is possible when the relationship between nurse, patient, and family continues (۱). A continuous care model can be applied by a nursing expert who has at least ۵ years of work experience and knows the principles of patient education. Nursing should not be limited to the hospital setting, and people should be aware of nursing services in the community before going to the hospital and after being discharged from the hospital (۲). Continuous or non-stop care model is a regular and continuous process including four stages of familiarization, sensitization, control, and evaluation in order to establish effective, interactive, and continuous communication between the help-seeker and his family, where the nurse acts as a continuous care agent and service provider in order to recognize the needs and problems of the patient and sensitize the patients to accept continuous health behaviors and helps to maintain recovery and improve their health, reduce and minimize the complications of the disease, and increase the level of satisfaction and quality of life of patients (۱). Today, health literacy is one of the basic tools to improve the health level of the society and the quality of providing health care services, which has attracted the attention of policymakers (۳). The term health literacy was first used in ۱۹۷۴ at a health education conference that discussed health education as a socio-political issue. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health literacy as cognitive and social skills that determine the motivation and ability of people to obtain, understand, and use health information for promoting and maintaining good health (۴). Research indicates that these health service providers (nurses) lack the necessary knowledge, attitude, and skills in the field of health literacy and care for patients with insufficient health literacy and effective communication strategies and methods during training (۵).