Abstracts by keywords: healthcare usability
With its high density of care facilities, free access to medical services, free choice of doctor and a high degree of differentiation, the German health system offers its insured persons a wide range of services and a variety of options. Responsible and enlightened patients use this freedom and are increasingly taking matters into their own hands: They are better informed than ever before, question, demand, know their rights and work proactively to regain or maintain their health. Such self-determined and competent use of the care system requires that patients can deal with health-relevant information and actively participate in decision-making processes. However, the current study situation indicates that this is often not the case. According to this, over half of the German population faces significant problems when it comes to finding, understanding, assessing and applying health-relevant information (Schaeffer et al. 2016). The skills and abilities required for this are defined as “health literacy”. Competent handling of health-relevant information forms the basis for taking an active role in the treatment process, finding your way around the diversity of instances in the system and being able to participate in decisions in the treatment process. The term “health literacy”, which is derived from the English “health literacy”, has been growing in popularity in German specialist literature for several years and is increasingly being described as a significant factor in the public health debate worldwide (Sørensen et al. 2012).