The Association of Health Literacy with Illness and Medication Beliefs among Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Low health literacy is associated with low adherence to self-management in many chronic diseases. Additionally, health beliefs are thought to be determinants of self-management behaviors. In this study we sought to determine the association, if any, of health literacy and health beliefs among elderly individuals with COPD. We enrolled a cohort of patients with COPD from two academic urban settings in New York, NY and Chicago, IL. Health literacy was measured using the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults. Using the framework of the Self-Regulation Model, illness and medication beliefs were measured with the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ) and Beliefs about Medications Questionnaire (BMQ). Unadjusted analyses, with corresponding Cohen's d effect sizes, and multiple logistic regression were used to assess the relationships between HL and illness and medication beliefs. We enrolled 235 participants, 29% of whom had low health literacy. Patients with low health literacy were more likely to belong to a racial minority group (p