"I cried because I didn't know if I could take care of him": toward a taxonomy of interactive and critical health literacy as portrayed by caregivers of children with special health care needs. J Health Commun 2011;16 Suppl 3:205-21
Date
09/29/2011Pubmed ID
21951253DOI
10.1080/10810730.2011.604386Scopus ID
2-s2.0-80053471905 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 14 CitationsAbstract
Although the contributions of reading ability and numeracy skills in successful navigation of health-related systems are understood, the skills that comprise interactive and critical health literacy are not fully explicit. Using a phenomenological approach and the conceptual frame of health literacy as an asset, we conducted focus group interviews with 35 caregivers of children who had significant medical needs. Caregiver quotes were coded and categorized and then compared to the Revised Blooms Taxonomy. The purpose of the analysis was to better understand the interactive and critical health literacy skills caregivers use when coordinating their children's care. The findings support a dynamic constructivist perspective of health literacy such that caregiver skill changed relative to the children's health conditions. In addition, a taxonomic code of cognitive and communicative skills emerged from the data. This taxonomy may be useful in developing instrumentation to measure interactive and critical health literacy as well as in identifying a potential foci of interventions aimed at improving interactive and critical health literacy.
Author List
Pizur-Barnekow K, Darragh A, Johnston MAuthor
Kris Barnekow PhD Associate Professor in the Occupational Science and Technology department at University of Wisconsin - MilwaukeeMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AdolescentCaregivers
Child
Child, Preschool
Classification
Crying
Disabled Children
Female
Focus Groups
Health Literacy
Humans
Infant
Male
Parent-Child Relations
Qualitative Research
Young Adult
