Health Literacy in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Undergoing Coronary Angiography

Health literacy reflects the ability to make appropriate health decisions and affects health outcomes. It therefore is an important parameter in patient care but also for health care providers. No health literacy data are available for patients undergoing coronary angiography, the standard procedure for the definite evaluation of coronary artery disease (CAD). We therefore recruited 273 consecutive patients undergoing coronary angiography for the evaluation of established or suspected stable CAD in a tertiary care setting in central Europe. Health literacy was measured using the validated HLS-EU-Q16 questionnaire. A response rate of 83.9% was achieved. Overall, the median health literacy score (HLS) was 13 (interquartile range (IQR): 10.00-15.00), with 61.9% of patients showing adequate (HLS 13-16), 26.0% problematic (HLS 9-12) and 12.1% inadequate (HLS 0-8) health literacy. From the investigated patients, 94 (34.4%) had type 2 diabetes (T2DM) according to ADA criteria. Comparing patients with T2DM vs. subjects who did not have diabetes, no significant differences in median HLS (13, IQR: 4.3 vs. 13.0, IQR: 5.00; p=0.247) could be observed; similarly, there was no significant difference in the proportion of subjects with adequate (60.6% vs. 62.6%; p=0.755), problematic (28.7% vs. 24.6%; p=0.458) and inadequate (10.6% vs. 12.8%; p=0.594) health literacy. We conclude that among patients undergoing coronary angiography for the evaluation of established or suspected stable CAD, health literacy is suboptimal both in patients with T2DM and in nondiabetic subjects. Disclosure J. Vogel: None. M. Ratz: None. T. Plattner: None. A. Vonbank: None. A. Mader: None. L. Sprenger: None. M. Maechler: None. B. Larcher: None. A. Leiherer: None. A. Muendlein: None. M. Frick: None. H. Drexel: None. C.H. Saely: None.