Victor Assunção
Health literacy and treatment adherance
- Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Lisbon
- Invited Adjunct Professor at the School of Health of Portalegre
- Co-coordinator of the Academic Network for Health Literacy
- Bachelor’s Degree in Dental Hygiene from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA
- Master’s in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of León, Spain
- PhD in Health Sciences and Technologies – Dental Hygiene, FMDUL
- Author and collaborator of scientific articles published in national and international journals
Nationality: Portugal
Scientific areas: On Our Agenda (communication and literacy)
17 of november, from 11h30 until 13h00
Room 2
Conference summary
Patient adherence is defined as the degree to which patients follow the treatment recommendations prescribed by their physician or health care provider.This can have a major impact on treatment outcome.
Adherence rates, however, vary widely among different patient populations, treatment regimens and disease types. Many patients are not adherent to disease prevention and management activities.
An increase in health literacy of health actors can be used as an effective education and prevention tools to improve disease management behaviours, including treatment adherence.
This presentation will provide a review of the concepts of health literacy, its importance in health adherence and user empowerment.
Speaker of the session “On the Agenda” with the title “Communication and literacy in dental medicine: is what the patient hears, what the dentist says”.