Health Science Literacy

Health literacy is the ability to obtain, read, understand and use health care information to make appropriate health decisions and follow instructions for treatment. Health literacy thus encompasses skills both required for clinicians to practice evidence based medicine, as for researchers and policy makers to design sound research and establish proper guidelines and recommendations. This handbook is a practical manual and instruction for asking case relevant questions, searching for relevant literature, critically reflecting on research, drawing conclusions, communicating the evidence, reporting formally and implementing the evidence. The book provides information and tips, along with interactive media on the online learning platform Sofia. The authors clarify basic principles of research methodology and elaborate on different study designs. They provide tips and tricks for searching scientific databases PubMed and Web of Science. They explain the risk of bias assessment and levels of evidence to draw conclusions for both clinical application (critical appraised topics) and scientific reports (systematic reviews). They also describe tools for reference management. Thus the book is ideally suited for students, clinicians, researchers and lecturers active in health care. 

Mira Meeus is professor Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy at the University of Antwerp and Ghent University (Belgium). As a researcher she is very active in the field of chronic pain, in which she produced numerous systematic reviews and original studies. She is cofounder of the international research group Pain in Motion (paininmotion.be). Her teaching activities are mainly situated in the domain of pain and research methodology. 

Nick Gebruers, physical therapist, is professor at the University of Antwerp, faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy. His field of research is breast cancer related morbidities including lymphatic disorders. He is author of several systematic reviews and original studies. His teaching activities are situated in research sciences as vascular pathology and vascular rehabilitation. He is cofounder of an interuniversity course for Oedema Therapy (oedema.be).