""Dr. Parnell has captured the essence of health literacy and cultural competence, not only for nurses, but also applicable to all care providers and community workers provides us with a road map to enhance our success through health literacy and cultural competence. This is a must read for all health professionals.""

-Richard H. Carmona, MD, MPH, FACS 17th Surgeon General of the United States (2002-2006) Distinguished Professor, University of Arizona

This health literacy textbook and clinical guide provides a solid foundation for developing the requisite skills nurses need to help all patients obtain and understand basic health information, so they can make appropriate health decisions. It is written for undergraduate and graduate nursing students studying to meet advance nurse practice competencies according to the Healthy People 2020 initiative to improve health literacy.

The book promotes communication strategies needed to verbally explain patient care protocols in simple, effective, and sensitive language and secondly, to provide easy-to-understand, age-and language-appropriate take-home materials that patients can read and follow when they arrive home. The text describes the consequences of poor health literacy and provides case examples drawn from real life that illustrate the use and effectiveness of developing health literacy skills. It provides clear guidance for APN competencies in all specialties. Nursing professionals can build upon the basic tools offered in the text throughout their career to stay abreast of evolving patient populations, cultural diversity demographics, and age-appropriate patient teaching content. Lastly, the material can easily be incorporated into course content regarding "special populations," (mental health, childbearing, reproductive health, end of life, and people living with disabilities) for whom health literacy often is overlooked.

Key Features: Provides a solid foundation for developing skills that foster health literacy among all patients Meets the regulatory and legal requirements for providing culturally sensitive, age-appropriate, and literacy-appropriate patient teaching Includes guidelines for improving health literacy according to Healthy People 2020 goals Includes real case examples throughout to illustrate purpose and effectiveness of fostering health literacy skills Addresses in depth oral and written forms of communication

Communication in Palliative Nursing presents the COMFORT Model, a theoretically-grounded and empirically-based model of palliative care communication. Built on over a decade of communication research with patients, families, and interdisciplinary providers, and reworked based on feedback from hundreds of nurses nationwide, the chapters outline a revised COMFORT curriculum: Connect, Options, Making Meaning, Family caregivers, Openings, Relating, and Team communication. Based on a narrative approach to communication, which addresses communication skill development, this volume teaches nurses to consider a universal model of communication that aligns with the holistic nature of palliative care. This work moves beyond the traditional and singular view of the nurse as patient and family educator, to embrace highly complex communication challenges present in palliative care-namely, providing care and comfort through communication at a time when patients, families, and nurses themselves are suffering. In light of the vast changes in the palliative care landscape and the increasingly pivotal role of nurses in advancing those changes, this second edition provides an evidence-based approach to the practice of palliative nursing. Communication in Palliative Nursing integrates communication theory and health literacy constructs throughout, and provides clinical tools and teaching resources to help nurses enhance their own communication and create comfort for themselves, as well as for patients and their families.

Caring for the Family Caregiver examines the high cost and poorly addressed exigencies of the family caregiver in chronic illness, including health literacy, palliative care, and health outcomes, through the prism of communication. This book uses an interdisciplinary approach to identify the impact of communication and its burdens on the caregiver and presents four caregiver profiles: the Manager, Carrier, Partner, and Lone caregiver, each emerging from a family system with different patterns of conversational sharing and expectations of conformity. By synthesizing current data assessing the experiences of caregivers, as well as integrating the narrative experiences of a range of caregivers living through a variety of illnesses and their specific demands, the authors deliver an unflinching gaze at the journey of the caregiver. With an author team comprised of three health communication researchers and a nurse and health literacy expert, this volume integrates literature addressing caregiver needs and burdens, communication theory and practice, palliative care and health literacy research, and the real stories of caregivers. Caring for the Family Caregiver presents the groundbreaking concept of the Caregiver Types and an innovative set of support resources to facilitate improved pathways to better care for the caregiver, making it an essential resource for providers, students, clinicians, policy makers and family caregivers alike.