Students’ self-perceived health literacy knowledge and skills increase during physiotherapy and speech pathology programs in Australia: A longitudinal convergent mixed-methods study

Abstract

Introduction: Individual health literacy is often suggested to be the antecedent to health literacy responsiveness. Health literacy responsiveness is the ability of healthcare professionals to respond to the health literacy attributes of individuals, families and communities. Therefore, it is important to establish whether health professional education programs are effectively developing students’ health literacy knowledge and skills. Methods: This study evaluated the health literacy journey of a single cohort of physiotherapy and speech pathology students over a 2-year graduate-entry master’s program using a longitudinal convergent mixed-methods design. Results: A quantitative self-perceived health literacy survey was collected at three time points aligning with the scaffolded health literacy curriculum: in the first semester (n = 30), third semester (n = 28) and fourth semester of the program (n = 23). A qualitative open-response questionnaire designed by the research team was also collected at the final time point (n = 22). Significant improvements were found in self-perceived health literacy scores overall and in both the knowledge and skills subdomains between intake and completion timepoints. Content analysis identified three themes, with students reflecting on: (1) their learning during the health literacy curriculum, (2) their intentions for future professional practice and (3) their own health literacy. Agreement was seen between the quantitative and qualitative data, with triangulated results demonstrating the impact of the curricula on students’ health literacy. Conclusion: Physiotherapy and speech pathology students’ self-perceived health literacy knowledge and skills improved in a curriculum where these elements were explicitly targeted and scaffolded. Students voiced that health literacy content increased their intentions to be responsive to health literacy in their future roles, with many increasing their own health literacy engagement.