Does patient health literacy impact adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy in breast cancer patients?

Figures & data

Table 1 Characteristics of patients (N=512)

Variables	Mean (SD) or frequency (%)
Age, years	59.2 (12.0)
Race
White	409 (80.0%)
Non-White	103 (20.0%)
Insurance status
Private insurance	231 (45.1%)
Public insurance (Medicare, Medicaid)	195 (38.1%)
No insurance	33 (6.4%)
Missing	53 (10.4%)
Cancer type
Invasive ductal carcinoma	322 (62.9%)
Invasive lobular carcinoma	46 (9.0%)
Ductal carcinoma in situ	134 (26.2%)
Others	10 (2.0%)
Stage
0	124 (24.2%)
1	208 (40.6%)
2	130 (25.4%)
3	39 (7.6%)
4	11 (2.1%)
Health literacy (raw score)	5.7 (2.5)
Low health literacy (combined limited and marginal)	131 (25.6%)
Limited health literacy	62 (12.1%)
Marginal health literacy	69 (13.5%)
Adequate health literacy	381 (74.4%)
Recommended to take adjuvant endocrine therapy
Yes	340 (66.4%)
No	172 (33.6%)
Endocrine therapy initiated among those who were recommended to take endocrine therapy (n=340)
Initiated	296 (87.1%)
Did not initiate	44 (12.9%)
Adherence at 2 years among those who were recommended to take endocrine therapy (n=136)
Adherent	108 (79.4%)
Non-adherent	28 (20.6%)

Table 2 Mean health literacy scores by group (lower health literacy scores represent higher levels of health literacy)

	Health literacy mean score (SD)	P-value
Endocrine therapy
Initiated	5.05 (2.35)	0.426
Did not initiate	5.25 (2.50)
Adherence at 2 years
Adherent	4.96 (2.09)	0.645
Non-adherent	5.18 (2.11)