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Health Literacy, Cognitive Impairment, And Medication Adherence In Veterans With Heart Failure, Lee Ann Hawkins Phd

Dissertations

Background: Heart failure (HF) affects 5.8 million people in the United States, costly in terms of patient mortality and morbidity as well as healthcare dollars. One important manifestation of poor HF outcomes is the excessive admission-readmission cycle. Non-adherence to medication is responsible for the majority of HF readmissions. Identification and intervention for key factors contributing to poor medication adherence is critical to improving outcomes. Two such factors prevalent in persons with HF are cognitive impairment (CI) and poor health literacy (HL). There is a paucity of tested interventions designed to improve medication adherence by addressing underlying CI or HL. A …