Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1093/jalm/jfaf192

Publication Title

The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

12 pp.

Abstract

Background

Health literacy and numeracy are broad terms that relate to a patient’s understanding of their health information. While there is a substantial amount of research on this topic in a general sense as well as in relation to how deficiencies in these skills impact patients’ understanding of laboratory results, little is known regarding the extent to which underlying factors, which are impacted by health literacy/numeracy, affect how patients interpret their results. This literature review attempts to shed light on the current literature on this more focused and narrow issue, including recommendations to address these barriers.

Content

To perform this review, the key terms “health literacy AND numeracy,” “health literacy AND laboratory results,” and “patient understanding of laboratory test results” were searched in the PubMed Central, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases. After reviewing articles for inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 16 articles were included. Major themes from the articles utilized were (a) the impact of the laboratory, (b) factors that affect health literacy and numeracy of laboratory data, and (c) recommendations to improve patient understanding and comprehension of their test results.

Summary

Many factors affect patients’ comprehension of laboratory data, such as access to this information, data presentation, and holistic influences. Recommendations for improving patient health numeracy of laboratory information are to improve how data is presented to patients and to increase access to supplemental resources via patient portals.

Rights

© Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine 2026.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ORCID

0009-0001-9863-2852 (Childs)

Original Publication Citation

Childs, R. L. (2026). Health literacy/numeracy-related factors affecting interpretation of medical laboratory values. The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/jalm/jfaf192

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