PATIENT TEACHING AND HEALTH EDUCATION
Health education is included in the American Nurses Association Standards of Care and is defined as an essential component of nursing care. It is directed toward promotion, maintenance, and restoration of health and toward adaptation to the residual effects of illness.
Learning Readiness
- Assist the patient in physical readiness to learn by trying to alleviate physical distress that may distract the patient's attention and prevent effective learning.
- Assess and promote the patient's emotional readiness to learn.
- Motivation to learn depends on acceptance of the illness or that illness is a threat, recognition of the need to learn, values related to social and cultural background, and a therapeutic regimen compatible with the patient's lifestyle.
- Promote motivation to learn by creating a warm, accepting, positive atmosphere; encouraging the patient to participate in the establishment of acceptable, realistic, and attainable learning goals; and providing constructive feedback about progress.
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- Assess and promote the patient's experiential readiness to learn.
- Determine what experiences the patient has had with health and illness, what success or failure the patient has had with learning, and what basic knowledge the patient has on related topics.
- Provide the patient with prerequisite knowledge necessary to begin the learning process.
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Teaching Strategies
- Patient education can occur at any time and in any setting; however, you must consider how conducive the environment is to learning, how much time you are able to schedule, and what other family members can attend the teaching session.
- Use a variety of techniques that are appropriate to meet the needs of each individual.
- Lecture or explanation should include discussion or a question and answer session.
- Group discussion is effective for individuals with similar needs; participants commonly gain support, assistance, and encouragement from other members.
- Demonstration and practice should be used when skills need to be learned; ample time should be allowed for practice and return demonstration.
- Teaching aids include books, pamphlets, pictures, slides, videos, tapes, and models and should be supplemental to verbal teaching. These can be obtained from government agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health; not-for-profit groups such as the American Heart Association or the March of Dimes; various Internet health websites, or pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
- Reinforcement and follow-up sessions offer time for evaluation and additional teaching if necessary and can greatly increase the effectiveness of teaching.
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- Document patient teaching, including what was taught and how the patient responded; use standardized patient teaching checklists if available.
