This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Young adults demonstrate ability to handle their GI medical records
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
SAN DIEGO — Adolescents and young adults demonstrated high levels of health literacy compared with their physicians as well as satisfaction with their medical records, according to data presented at Digestive Disease Week.
“Adolescents and young adult patients with chronic GI and liver diseases demonstrated adequate comprehension and are typically satisfied with their medical documentation. Given that our findings refute any prior concerns, we would submit that pediatric medical institutions should consider releasing medical notes to adolescent young adult patients so they might be able to reap similar benefits as those seen in adult patients and be ultimately prepared for transitioning to adult care,” Ryan Yueh, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, said during his presentation.
Yueh and colleagues surveyed adolescents and young adults (n = 16; age 12 years or older) with chronic GI and liver disease by having them read their latest medical record and reporting their interpretation of accuracy in the documentation. The survey also asked if they would edit their medical notes. Lastly, the adolescents and young adults underwent assessment for functional health literacy. Two physicians read the same notes and answered the same questions, Yueh said.
“Upon completion of our study, we demonstrated that adolescent and young adult patients were generally satisfied with the accuracy of their medical notes,” Yueh said.
The majority of adolescent and young adults agreed with physician readers regarding their health status (64%) and change in medical management (62%) and few requested edits to their medical notes (7%).
“When comparing by age for literacy satisfaction and comprehension, we saw for that for health literacy across the board, the majority of our patients demonstrated adequate health literacy,” he said.
There were no statistically significant differences in health literacy, accuracy satisfaction and comprehension between age groups or between ethnicities or sexes, Yueh reported.
“In general, adolescent and young adults reported high satisfaction with accuracy of their medical documentation. Our patients demonstrated adequate comprehension of note content. ... All of our finds refute concerns regarding health literacy, comprehension and potential for harm,” he said. – by Katrina Altersitz
Reference:
Yueh R, et al. Abstract 236. Presented at: Digestive Disease Week; May 18-21; San Diego, California.
Disclosure: Yueh reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Perspective
Back to Top
Joel R. Rosh, MD, FAAP, FACG, AGAF
This study should be subtitled, “Children teach the parents well.” We tend to not give full credit to our preadolescent and adolescent population as far as their health care literacy.
With social media, and I see this all the time as a pediatric gastroenterologist, my patients come in very well prepared and they have already Googled who I am, they have Googled their condition and they’re ready to go, which is sometimes much to the shock of their own parents. This was a very creative study, but included a very small patient population (n = 16).
The children all knew that they had chronic gastrointestinal or liver disease. They were given access to their medical records and they were then asked to interpret the accuracy of the documentation that was provided in their medical records, whether or not they felt that edits were needed, and also to demonstrate their understanding and grasp of the information within the medical records.
The authors showed that the adolescents and young adults were actually generally satisfied with the accuracy of their medical records, so they thought the doctors got it right. The children thought that an edit was needed only 7% of the time.
The adolescents and young adults also demonstrated a high rate of understanding their own medical records.
Many institutions have set up their electronic medical records to restrict full access to the 12- to 18-year-old population. But the authors conclude that maybe we should allow them access because they do really understand, and they understand it well, and with better education and reading their records, they’d be able to have input on their own care at a higher level.
This is a very thought-provoking study, but it only included 16 patients and we were not told how the patients were selected. As such, this pilot spurs interest in conceiving larger and more randomized studies that would further inform those who set up electronic medical records as far as the best way to include young adults and adolescents in their own health care.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts