Bibliotherapy on coping with illness improves health literacy but not heart-related anxiety of patients in cardiological rehabilitation

Information of patients about their illness is necessary for patient empowerment and coping with illness. This can be done by written material, i.e. bibliotherapy [1-6]. Scientific data suggest that bibliotherapy can help patients to better understand their illness, improve their health behaviour, and reduce anxiety [2, 3, 7]. The objective of the present study is to investigate in a randomized controlled trial the effects of bibliotherapy on illness-related knowledge, i.e. health literacy, and on heart-related anxiety in cardiology patients.