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RecruitingNCT03951467ILIADEUpdated Jul 14, 2025

Using an Intervention Adapted to the Health Literacy Level to Improve Adherence to Medical Recommendations

An interventional study of Interventional educational toolkit specific to low Health Literacy patients, designed with patients and health professionals. in Acute Decompensated Heart Failure and Acute Myocardial Infarction, sponsored by Hospices Civils de Lyon. Recruiting at 4 sites in France. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-07-14.

Sponsored by Hospices Civils de Lyon · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Jun 2025; still recruiting 1 year 4 months later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
300
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Health literacy is the ability to access, understand, evaluate and apply information in order to communicate with health professionals and understand health instructions but also, promote, maintain and improve health throughout life. Health literacy is known as a health determinant. Level of Health Literacy is low or limited within 47% of interrogated people in Europe, resulting in an inability to understand and/or use written texts and digital concepts about one's health.

There is a demonstrated link between low HL and low therapeutic adherence, an increase in the number of re-admissions, and more generally poor health or survival that is even more limited. An association between low LS and higher health care costs has also been reported in the USA and Switzerland. WHO highlight the central role of Health Literacyin health inequalities, regardless of the region of the world.

The investigator chose to conduct this study in patients hospitalized for an acute cardiovascular event: acute myocardial infarction or acute decompensated heart failure , as these patients have cumulative risk factors for misuse and medication errors. They are hospitalized in emergency, for shorter and shorter periods and are discharged with complex drug treatments. The data show that the return home after acute hospitalization for these conditions is a particularly high-risk period for medication errors and misuse, especially with low level of Health Literacy. The proportion of patients with preventable adverse events in the weeks following their return home ranges from 23% to 30% and nearly 60% are re-hospitalized within 6 months.

The hypothesis of the study is that in patients hospitalized for cute myocardial infarctionor acute decompensated heart failurewith low Health Literacy levels, information on discharge treatment using appropriate tools and techniques will reduce the risk of patient-related medication errors or misuse within 30 days of discharge.

The purpose of this study is to develop an educational intervention model adapted to low Health Literacy levels and routinely feasible, even in case of short stays, in complementarity with traditional therapeutic education programmes that require higher investments and are therefore not accessible to all patients. This innovative approach could then be applied to a large number of chronic diseases.

02

Conditions studied

  • Acute Decompensated Heart Failure
  • Acute Myocardial Infarction

Keywords

  • Literacy
  • Cardiovascular Diseases
  • Interventional study
  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Tertiary prevention
  • Health promotion
03

In context

Literacy

201 studies on the registry are indexed under Literacy; 69 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 300 is above the median of 124 across 170 interventional studies indexed under Literacy.

Browse Literacy studies →

Lead sponsor

Hospices Civils de Lyon is the lead sponsor of 1,866 studies on the registry; 448 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Age greater than or equal to 18 years
  • Hospitalization for at least a 2nd acute attack (systolic or diastolic)
  • Patient living at home before hospitalization for decompensation
  • Affiliated with a health insurance plan

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Short-term vital prognosis
  • Bipolar disorders, active psychoses
  • Severe dementia
  • Psychiatric or cognitive comorbidities making inclusion impossible, at the discretion of the investigator.
  • Pregnant, parturient or breastfeeding women
  • Persons deprived of liberty by a judicial or administrative decision
  • Persons admitted to a health or social establishment for purposes other than research
  • Adults subject to a legal protection measure (guardianship, curatorship)
  • Subject participating in another interventional research including an exclusion period still ongoing at inclusion
  • Score S-TOFHLA (>22)
  • Withdrawal of consent
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
300 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Interventional arm

    Other: Interventional educational toolkit specific to low Health Literacy patients, designed with patients and health professionals.

  • No intervention
    Controlled arm

    Patients within this arm will be follow as usual care of the cardiologic unit

Interventions

  • OtherInterventional educational toolkit specific to low Health Literacy patients, designed with patients and health professionals.

    Three interviews between the patient and a health advisor trained for the study: two times before discharge from hospital and a telephone reminder within 3 weeks after discharge. First and second interview: the nurse will evolve using tools developed in the first phase of the study. The nurse will provide detailed personalized information on the patient's discharge order and illness and the action to be taken depending on the potential situations the patient may encounter. Telephone interview: within 3 weeks after discharge, the nurse will repeat the elements of the first interview with the patient to verify that the information has been properly understood and retained and that the patient is able to adopt appropriate behaviors in high-risk situations. Two interviews by phone with a clinical reseach assistant at 30 days et 90 days after discharge which consist of questionnaire.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Patient-related medication errors or misuse within 30 days of discharge from hospital.

    This criterion is defined as the proportion of patients who have made a medication error or misuse, with or without a clinical consequence. We will focus on patient-related medication errors and misuse, i.e. non-compliance with prescription (shorter or longer treatment time, dosage changes, self-medication, etc.), based on the definition proposed by Kripalani et al. An adjudication committee composed of three independent experts will be responsible for defining the potential severity of drug errors or misuses related to the main judgement criterion. Data on primary endpoint will be collected by a clinical researcher, blinded to the randomization group, using a standardized questionnaire administered during the 30-day telephone interview. The patient will be asked the names of the treatments, how he/she took them (number of units per intake, frequency of intake,...), self-medication taken and medical follow-up (medical consultations, biological follow-up,...) over the past 30 days.

    Time frame: Day 30

07

Study locations

4 of 4 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Jul 14, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03951467
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
May 15, 2019
Start date
Jun 26, 2025
Primary completion
Dec 26, 2027 (estimated)
Completion
Dec 26, 2027 (estimated)
Last update
Jul 14, 2025

Study contacts

Julie HAESEBAERT, MD
Contact
julie.haesebaert@chu-lyon.fr
04 72 68 49 05 ext. +33
Estelle BRAVANT
Contact
estelle.bravant@chu-lyon.fr
04 27 85 63 18 ext. +33
Julie HAESEBAERT, MD
principal investigator · Hospices Civils de Lyon

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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