Pragmatic Skills Used by Older Adults in Social Communication Health Care Contexts: Precursors to Health Literacy

Purpose: Older adults are frequent consumers of health care services. However, reports have indicated that breakdowns in communication during provider-patient interactions may contribute to poor health outcomes in this population. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the pragmatic skills used by older adults in social contexts were related to the communication skills they used in health care contexts. Method: Sixty-three older adults ranging from 63 to 93 years of age were administered the Social Communication subtest of the Functional Assessment of Communication Skills for Adults (FACS; Frattali, Thompson, Holland, Wohl, & Ferketic, 1995) along with the Healthcare Communication Profile (Hester, 2006), which is a self-report measure of communication skills within the health care setting. In addition, a narrative was collected from each participant. Correlation and stepwise multiple regression procedures were completed to determine relationships between the use of pragmatic skills in the two settings. Results: Results indicated significant relationships between pragmatic skills used in social communication settings and pragmatic skills used in health care settings. Conclusion: The pragmatic skills used by older adults in social communication settings are related to the pragmatic skills they used in health care settings. Adapted from the source document