Health Literacy and Hospital Length of Stay: An Inpatient Cohort Study
BACKGROUND: Associations between low health literacy (HL) and adverse health outcomes have been well documented in the outpatient setting; however, few studies have examined associations between low HL and in-hospital outcomes.
OBJECTIVE: To compare hospital length of stay (LOS) among patients with low HL and those with adequate HL.
DESIGN: Hospital-based cohort study.
SETTING: Academic urban tertiary-care hospital.
PATIENTS: Hospitalized general medicine patients.
MEASUREMENTS: We measured HL using the Brief Health Literacy Screen. Severity of illness and LOS were obtained from administrative data. Multivariable linear regression controlling for illness severity and sociodemographic variables was employed to measure the association between HL and LOS.
RESULTS: Among 5540 participants, 20% (1104/5540) had low HL. Participants with low HL had a longer average LOS (6.0 vs 5.4 days, P < 0.001). Low HL was associated with an 11.1% longer LOS (95% confidence interval [CI], 6.1%-16.1%; P < 0.001) in multivariate analysis. This effect was significantly modified by gender (P = 0.02). Low HL was associated with a 17.8% longer LOS among men (95% CI, 10.0%-25.7%; P < 0.001), but only a 7.7% longer LOS among women (95% CI, 1.9%-13.5%; P = 0.009).
CONCLUSIONS: In this single-center cohort study, low HL was associated with a longer hospital LOS. The findings suggest that the adverse effects of low HL may extend into the inpatient setting, indicating that targeted interventions may be needed for patients with low HL. Further work is needed to explore these negative consequences and potential mitigating factors.
© 2017 Society of Hospital Medicine
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Hospitalist Project team for their assistance with data collection. The authors especially thank Chuanhong Liao and Ashley Snyder for assistance with statistical analyses; Andrea Flores, Ainoa Coltri, and Tom Best for their assistance with data management. The authors would also like to thank Nicole Twu for her help with preparing and editing the manuscript.
Disclosures
Dr. Jaffee was supported by a Calvin Fentress Research Fellowship and NIH R25MH094612. Dr. Press was supported by a career development award (NHLBI K23HL118151). This work was also supported by a seed grant from the Center for Health Administration Studies. All other authors declare no conflicts of interest.
