Health literacy and the use of healthcare services in Belgium

BACKGROUND: Most of the existing studies demonstrating the relationships between health literacy and health service use have been conducted outside Europe and cannot be generalised to European healthcare systems. Moreover, the majority of studies measure healthcare use via self-reports. This study investigated whether health literacy is related to the use of health services measured objectively via patient records in a European country. METHODS: 9617 members of a Belgian health insurance fund (59% females, ages 18-88 years, mean age 55.8 years) completed an online questionnaire including the 1... Mehr ...