Health Literacy and Relation to Adherence to Pharmacologic Treatment of Patients in Hemodialysis

Objective: to analyze the relationship between health literacy and adherence to treatment of dialysis patients. Method: cross-sectional study with 424 end-stage renal disease patients on conventional HD in the West and Middle West of Santa Catarina. The SALPHA questionnaire was used to analyze health literacy and the Brief Medication Questionnaire was used for treatment adherence. Minimental was used to analyze cognition. Results: the mean age was 57.3±15.8 years, 53.3% men, 71.4% with low education level, 10.1% have had a kidney transplant, 5.0% reported having already taken an extra dose of medication, 4.0% said they had missed doses and 22.6% admitted failure of days or prescribed doses. Literacy was inadequate for 67%, 49.1% were considered to have cognitive impairment, 55.2% are adhered to treatment. Low adherence to treatment was related to inadequate literacy (p<0.01), literacy and cognition showed a positive correlation (r=0.5; p<0.00), those who reported taking extra dose of the medication were less adherent (p<0.03), as well as those who omitted medication at some point (p<0.02). Conclusion: Inadequate literacy was related to low adherence to treatment, and also to cognitive deficit, low education, smoking and old age.