Table 3.

Medication and health-related characteristics of community-residing older adults (n = 200)

	White (n = 100)	Black (n = 100)	P-value
Medications, * mean (SD); range	11.6 (5.0); 3–26	9.7 (4); 4–21	0.003
Chronic conditions, † mean (SD); range	8.4 (3.1); 2–19	7.4 (2.8); 2–18	0.01
Physicians, mean (SD); range	3.6 (1.8); 1–9	2.8 (1.5); 0–8	<0.001
Pharmacies, mean (SD); range	1.3 (0.6); 1–3	1.3 (0.5); 1–3	0.42
Has help with medications, %	16	16	1.00
Uses medication aid ‡, %	70	57	0.06
Pill box, %	47	50	0.67
Written list of medications, %	30	16	0.02
Shows written list to physician, %	18	11	0.16
Has some form of prescription drug coverage, %	91	94	0.42
Could not purchase meds due to cost, %	12	28	0.005
Short-test of functional health literacy in adults (S-TOFHLA) §; mean (SD); range	24.2 (10.6); 0–36	14.8 (11.9); 0–35	<0.001
Adequate (%)	58	29
Marginal (%)	12	13
Inadequate (%)	30	58
Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (IADLs) ||; mean (SD); range	13.7 (3.0); 1–16	13.5 (3.0); 4–16	0.69

^*Includes all medications (i.e., prescription, over-the-counter, and complementary and alternative medications).

^†Defined as any chronic condition documented in the medical record.

^‡Does not add up to 100%, since patients may have been using more than one medication aid.

^§Scores range from 0 to 36 and are categorized as inadequate (0–16), marginal (17–22), or adequate (23–36) health literacy.

^||Scores range from 0 (low function, dependent) to 16 (high function, independent).