Graduation Year

2018

Document Type

Ed. Specalist

Degree

*Ed.S.

Degree Name

Education Specialist (Ed.S.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychological and Social Foundations

Major Professor

Kathy Bradley-Klug, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Robert Dedrick, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Emily Shaffer-Hudkins, Ph.D.

Keywords

Health literacy, youth, chronic health conditions, self-advocacy, resiliency

Abstract

Over the past several decades the number of youth living with a chronic health condition has drastically increased. A chronic health condition can be defined as an illness that lasts three months or more that can be controlled but not cured (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010). Although there is existing literature on youth with chronic health conditions, there are very few studies that examine the levels of health literacy, resiliency and support/advocacy within this population. The current study is a secondary analysis that utilized data collected from the 37-item Youth Health Literacy and Resiliency Scale (HLRS-Y version) in order to determine if there was a relationship between different categories of chronic health conditions and reported levels of health literacy, resiliency and support/advocacy. Ages of participants were also examined to determine if there was an interaction effect.

The study consisted of a 143 youth between the ages of 13- 21 years old. All participants completed the Youth Health Literacy and Resiliency Scale (Bradley-Klug, Shaffer-Hudkins, Lynn, DeLoatche, & Montgomery, 2017) and were placed into one of three categories of chronic health condition: 1) Endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases, 2) Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, and 3) Diseases of congenital malformation, deformations, and chromosomal abnormalities. The data were analyzed to determine if there was a difference in the reported constructs of health literacy, resiliency and support/self-advocacy among the three different categories of chronic health illnesses.

The results indicated that there was a significant relation between support/self-advocacy and age. As participants increased in age, they reported having lower levels of support/self-advocacy. This finding was significant regardless of the category of chronic health condition that the participants were placed in. There were no other significant findings for the other constructs. This study contributes to the literature because it is one of few to examine health literacy, resiliency and support/self-advocacy levels among youth with chronic health conditions. In addition, it is the first study aside from the pilot, to utilize the HLRS. The findings from this study can be utilized to drive support/self-advocacy interventions for youth with chronic health conditions.

Included in

Psychology Commons

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