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Health literacy is simply defined as an individual’s ability to access, understand and use information in ways that promote and maintain good health. Lower health literacy has been found to be associated with increased emergency department presentations and potentially avoidable hospitalisations. This study aimed to determine the health literacy of hospital inpatients, and to examine if associations exist between different dimensions of their health literacy, sociodemographic characteristics and hospital services use.

A written survey was sent to 3,252 people aged ≥18 years in English, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian or Greek. The survey included demographic and health questions, and the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ). The HLQ is a multidimensional instrument comprising nine independent scales. Use of hospital …