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Young Adults Demonstrate Ability to Handle Their GI Medical Records
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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.