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World J Nephrol. Mar 6, 2016; 5(2): 147-151
Published online Mar 6, 2016. doi: 10.5527/wjn.v5.i2.147
Health literacy in kidney disease: Review of the literature and implications for clinical practice
Deepika Jain, Jamie Alton Green
Deepika Jain, Department of Nephrology, Hudson Kidney Group, Jersey City, NJ 07035, United States
Jamie Alton Green, Department of Nephrology, Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, PA 17822, United States
Author contributions: Both of the authors contributed to the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Deepika Jain, MD, Associate Nephrologist, Department of Nephrology, Hudson Kidney Group, 5201 Riverside Station Blvd, Secaucus, Jersey City, NJ 07035, United States. deepika_j26@yahoo.com
Telephone: +1-217-7226594
Received: September 29, 2015
Peer-review started: October 4, 2015
First decision: November 30, 2015
Revised: December 18, 2015
Accepted: January 27, 2016
Article in press: January 29, 2016
Published online: March 6, 2016
Processing time: 124 Days and 4.6 Hours
Abstract

Health literacy is the capacity of an individual to understand information related to a disease in order to make an informed decision. In patients with kidney diseases, studies have reported increasing impact of limited health literacy on health outcomes. Our paper discusses current literature on health literacy in kidney diseases.

Keywords: Health literacy; Kidney diseases; Rapid estimate of adult literacy in medicine; Hemodialysis; Peritoneal dialysis; Chronic kidney disease

Core tip: Health literacy is an increasing recognized cause of suboptimal care and management of chronic diseases in patients. Our paper reviews the current literature on its prevalence and impact in the population with kidney diseases. More studies are needed in patients with kidney diseases to better understand the effect of limited health literacy.