Effectiveness of the teach-back method for improving the health literacy of senior citizens in nursing homes.

AIM: To explore the effectiveness of the teach-back method for improving the health literacy of older adults in nursing homes in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, China.

METHODS: Among the 27 registered nursing homes, 10 were selected randomly by size and divided into the intervention and control groups. A total of 127 older adults in the intervention group and 136 in the control group met the inclusion criteria. The intervention and control groups were educated by using the teach-back and traditional methods, respectively, in this 6 month study. The Chinese Citizen Health Literacy Questionnaire was used to evaluate the effects of the interventions.

RESULTS: Pre-intervention, the health literacy level of the cohorts was relatively low. Postintervention, the total health literacy score of the intervention group increased, while the total health literacy score of the control group had increased to a lesser extent. The total and four-dimension scores of the two groups were statistically significant. The intergroup difference in the two groups, and the intervention group's total health literacy score and each dimension score were higher than in the control group; these differences were statistically significant .

CONCLUSIONS: The teach-back method can improve the health literacy level of older adults through short-term educational intervention. The teach-back method should be adopted by more healthcare providers and applied to improve the health literacy education of older adults.