Abstract
Background
Given rapidly accumulating evidence that health literacy is correlated with important health-related measures, assessing patients’ health literacy level is of increasing concern for researchers and practitioners. Practical limitations for use of existing health literacy measures include length of time and practitioner involvement in administration.
Objective
To develop and validate a brief, self-administered measure of health literacy, the Medical Term Recognition Test (METER).
Participants
155 participants were recruited from an outpatient cardiology program at an urban hospital.
Measures
Patients completed measures of health literacy (METER and REALM), neuropsychological function, psychosocial health, and self-report questionnaires about health behaviors. Indicators of cardiovascular health were also recorded from patients’ medical charts.
Key results
The measure took 2 min to complete. The internal consistency of the METER was 0.93, and it correlated highly with REALM (r = 0.74). Regarding sensitivity and specificity for identifying individuals below REALM’s cutoff for functional literacy, METER resulted in 75% correct identifications and 8% false positives. METER and REALM were both associated with various health-related measures (including significant correlations with measures of neuropsychological function and cardiovascular health).
Conclusions
These initial findings show that the METER is a quick and practical measure of health literacy for use in clinical settings.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rochelle O’Neil for assistance with data scoring. This work was supported in part by a James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Bridging Brain, Mind and Behavior Collaborative Award (KR), by awards DK075119 and HL039311 (JG), and by award R21 AT002698-01 A2 (JH).
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None disclosed.
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Appendix: METER Instructions and Items
Appendix: METER Instructions and Items
The following list contains some real medical words. For example, some of the words have to do with body parts or body functions, kinds of diseases, or things that can make your health better or worse. The list also contains some items that may look or sound like medical words but that are not actually real words.
As you read through the list, put an “X” next to the items that you know are real words.
You should not guess. Only put an “X” next to an item if you’re sure it’s a real word.
_______ Irrity | _______ Inlest |
_______ Arthritis | _______ Pollent |
_______ Obesity | _______ Malories |
_______ Flu | _______ Cancer |
_______ Behaviose | _______ Alcoheliose |
_______ Syphilis | _______ Antibiotics |
_______ Potassium | _______ Antiregressant |
_______ Hormones | _______ Colitis |
_______ Nerves | _______ Diabetes |
_______ Pilk | _______ Occipitent |
_______ Rection | _______ Nausion |
_______ Blout | _______ Impetigo |
_______ Boweling | _______ Menstrual |
_______ Exercise | _______ Abghorral |
_______ Pustule | _______ Seizure |
_______ Cerpes | _______ Appendix |
_______ Kidney | _______ Fam |
_______ Emergency | _______ Infarth |
_______ Potient | _______ Dose |
_______ Menopause | _______ Hemorrhoids |
_______ Diagnosis | _______ Testicle |
_______ Depretion | _______ Eye |
_______ Jaundice | _______ Midlocation |
_______ Gallbladder | _______ Insomniate |
_______ Miscarriage | _______ Bloodgatten |
_______ Hepatitis | _______ Sexually |
_______ Astiringe | _______ Pelvince |
_______ Nutral | _______ Vaccilly |
_______ Asthma | _______ Prescription |
_______ Inflammatory | _______ Germs |
_______ Anemia | _______ Gonorrhea |
_______ Allagren | _______ Tumic |
_______ Prognincy | _______ Fatigue |
_______ Stress | _______ Osteoporosis |
_______ Ellargic | _______ Constipation |
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Rawson, K.A., Gunstad, J., Hughes, J. et al. The METER: A Brief, Self-Administered Measure of Health Literacy. J GEN INTERN MED 25, 67–71 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-1158-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-1158-7