The International Journal of Communication and Health

There is a growing emphasis in the literature on how interpersonal processes of care such as quality physician-patient communication can impact measurable health outcomes and patient satisfaction. Poor communication between the patient and physician has been significantly associated with rates of hospital admission, unintentional non-adherence to treatment, and incomplete understanding of self-care instructions. An important contributor to effective physician-patient communication is the concept of health literacy, which can be simply defined as the patients’ capacity to read, understand, process, communicate, and critically analyze health information so that they are able to make informed health-related decisions. This review seeks to evaluate the current literature on health literacy and its influence on the physician-patient interaction during the medical consultation. Four overriding themes emerged: 1. the effect of health literacy on patient participation, 2. patients’ communication preferences, expectations, and perceptions, 3. communication recommendations for physicians when encountering low literate patients, and 4. proposed interventions. Future research should focus on elucidating the pathway in which health literacy affects physician-patient communication and what aspects can be addressed to improve the health of both patients with adequate and inadequate HL skills.