The association of health literacy, numeracy and graph literacy with frailty.

BACKGROUND: Frailty is a state of vulnerability to stressors which may result in high mortality, morbidity, and health-care utilization in older adults. Whether health literacy, graph literacy and numeracy are associated with frailty is unknown. AIM: To assess the association of health literacy, numeracy and graph literacy with frailty in male veterans. METHODS: This is a retrospective study of 470 cognitively intact, non-depressed veterans who completed evaluations of health literacy, numeracy and graph literacy at Miami VA facility in 2012. A 43-item frailty index was created as a proportion of all potential variables (demographics, comorbidities, number of medications, laboratory tests, and activities of daily life). Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated by multinomial logistic regression models with frailty status (robust, prefrail and frail) as the outcome variable, and with health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy scores as independent variables. Age, race, ethnicity, education, socio-economic status, and comorbidities were considered as covariates. RESULTS: Patients were 100% male, 40% White, 82% non-Hispanic, mean age was 56.8 years. The proportion of robust, pre-frail and frail was 10.0%, 61.3% and 28.7%, respectively. Neither health literacy nor objective nor subjective numeracy was associated with frailty after adjustment for covariates. In contrast, higher graph literacy scores were associated with a lower risk for frailty (p = .015) even after adjusting known risk factors for frailty. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Neither health literacy nor numeracy is associated with frailty. Higher graph literacy score is associated with a lower risk for frailty even after adjusting for known risk factors for frailty.

The association of health literacy domains with hospitalizations and mortality.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy are associated with all-cause hospitalizations or mortality in community-dwelling veterans. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. METHODS: A total of 470 community-dwelling veterans underwent evaluations of health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy with validated instruments in 2012 and were followed until 2018. At the end of follow-up, the associations with all-cause hospitalizations and mortality were determined with the Andersen-Gill model and Cox regression multivariate analysis, respectively. RESULTS: There were no associations of health literacy, numeracy, or graph literacy with all-cause hospitalization or mortality after multivariate adjustment. In subgroup analysis, subjective numeracy was associated with hospitalizations in African Americans. Higher objective and subjective numeracy were associated with future hospitalizations only for those with a history of hospitalization. Higher graph literacy was associated with lower mortality in those with a history of hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS: This study did not show associations of health literacy, numeracy, or graph literacy scores with lower risk of all-cause hospitalization or mortality. Further research is needed with random sampling in a broader spectrum of healthcare settings to better understand what roles health literacy, numeracy, and graph literacy might play in healthcare utilization and clinical outcomes.

Impact of Dialysis Requirement in Community-acquired Pneumonia Hospitalizations.

Background Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common cause of hospitalization. While there are single-center studies on acute kidney injury requiring dialysis (AKI-D) and CAP, data on national trends and outcomes regarding AKI-D in CAP hospitalizations is lacking. Methods We utilized the Nationwide Inpatient Sample to analyze trends overall and within subgroups. We also utilized multivariate regression to adjust for potential confounders of annual trends and to generate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) for predictors and outcomes, including mortality and adverse discharge. Results There were 11,500,456 pneumonia hospitalizations between 2002 and 2013, of which 3675 (0.3%) were complicated by AKI-D. The AKI-D rate increased from 2.7/1000 hospitalizations in 2002 to 4.3/1000 hospitalizations in 2013. The rate of increase was higher in males and African Americans. Although temporal changes in demographics and comorbidities explained a substantial proportion, they could not explain the entire trend. The predictor with the highest odds of AKI-D required mechanical ventilation during hospitalization (aOR 12.47; 95% CI 11.66-13.34). Other significant predictors included sepsis (aOR 4.37; 95% CI 4.09-4.66), heart failure (aOR 2.40; 95% CI 2.25-2.55), and chronic kidney disease (CKD) (aOR 2.00; 95% CI 1.86-2.16). AKI-D was associated with increased in-hospital mortality (aOR 3.08; 95% CI 2.88-3.30) and adverse discharge (aOR 2.09; 95% CI 1.92-2.26). Although adjusted mortality decreased per year, attributable mortality remained stable. Conclusion Pneumonia hospitalizations complicated by AKI-D have increased with a differential increase by demographic groups. AKI-D is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. In the absence of effective AKI-D therapies, the focus should be on early risk stratification and prevention to avoid this devastating complication.