Delivering Patient-Centered Care with Respect to Patient Education and Health Literacy in Athletic Training Job Settings.

Context: A patient-centered care (PCC) environment allows athletic trainers (ATs) to develop trusting relationships with patients, enabling them to make the most informed care decisions. To provide PCC, the AT should assess health literacy and deliver quality patient education.

Objective: To explore the lived experiences of ATs from different job settings to identify how they deliver PCC specific to health literacy and patient education.

Design: Qualitative.

Setting: Virtual interviews.

Patient or other participants: 27 ATs (age=34±10 y; women=15, men=12) from the physician practice (n=10), college (n=9), and secondary school (n=8) settings.

Main outcome measures: We interviewed the participants using a semi-structured interview protocol. Three researchers coded the transcripts following the consensual qualitative research process for each job setting. Trustworthiness was achieved through multi-analyst triangulation, member checking, and internal auditing.

Results: Four domains emerged from all interviews: 1) work environment, 2) essential traits and skills, 3) health literacy assessment strategies, and 4) patient education materials and delivery. In the work environment, ATs described the patient load, interprofessional relationships, and patient characteristics across settings. For essential traits and skills, ATs from the settings varied widely, and different strategies were needed based on differing patient needs. For health literacy assessment strategies, ATs did not formally assess health literacy and relied on perceptions and assumptions. Effective digital information and health informatics strategies were described for patient education materials and delivery.

Conclusions: ATs from physician practice, college, and secondary school settings describe using various strategies to create a patient-centered environment. Participants shared their behaviors in assessing health literacy and delivering patient education from various job settings.