Background: Chronic kidney disease causes damage to the individual's health and peritoneal dialysis is one of the therapies indicated in the treatment. The identification of the individual's responses to health problems can be done through standardized languages that make it possible to assess the impact of nursing actions and facilitate communication between these professionals. In this context, the identification of the low health literacy nursing diagnosis can be carried out based on measures that offer reliability in the recognition of its elements and contribute to the orientation of effective interventions.

Objective: Identify aspects related to low health literacy nursing diagnosis of patients on home peritoneal dialysis. 

Method: Cross-sectional survey, with descriptive analysis, conducted with 106 patients on home peritoneal dialysis during the routine clinical consultation. Health literacy was assessed using the Health Literacy Questionnaire - Brazilian version (HLQ-Br) and socio-demographic variables. Only the lowest scores on the nine scales of the instrument were analyzed. For the four-point scales (part 1), scores 1 and 2 were considered; and for the five-point scales (part 2), scores 1, 2, and 3 were considered. 

Results: The item with the highest number of patients with low scores (89 patients) was related to the understanding of drug labels. The lowest average obtained between the scales in part 1 referred to the lack of support from friends and family. Among the scales in part 2 was to find an adequate health service.

Conclusions: The low health literacy nursing diagnosis can be mainly related to the lack of social support, the lack of understanding of the information on medications, and the difficulty in identifying health services to meet health demands.

Health literacy and public health promotion

Health literacy and clinical healthcare settings (incl primary care)