Chapter 25

Question 1

What is the purpose of patient education?

Answer 1

• Provide safe patient centered care
• Preventative health care
• Help individuals, families, and communities achieve optimal levels of health through their own actions

Question 2

Topics of patient education

Answer 2

Health promotion and illness prevention
- Better health maintenance habits
Restoration of health
- Identify patients’ willingness to learn and motivate interest in learning
Coping with impaired functions
- New knowledge and skills are often necessary to continue ADLs

Question 3

Teaching and learning

Answer 3

Teaching = imparting knowledge
Learning = acquisition of knowledge

Question 4

Nurses role in teaching/learning

Answer 4

• Deliver accurate, complete, and relevant information to the patients’ needs, language, and literacy
• Allows the patient/family to make informed decisions about their care
• Ethical responsibility to teach patients

Question 5

What is the SPEAK-UP initiative?

Answer 5

• Goal: help patients and their advocates become active in their care
• Patients right to be informed about their care: preferred language, names of caregivers, treatment for pain, list of current medications, treated with respect
• Medical interpreter must be present if there is a language barrier

Question 6

What does SPEAK-UP stand for?

Answer 6

S: speak up if you have questions
P: pay attention to the care you get
E: educate yourself about your illness
A: ask a trusted family member or friend to be your advocate
K: know which medicines you take and why you take them
U: use health care organizations that have been checked carefully
P: participate in all decisions about your treatment

Question 7

Teaching plans

Answer 7

• Be certain that the patients individualized needs are being addressed
• What exactly does the patient need to know (don’t give too many complicated details)
• Patient motivation and ability to learn
• Who else might be involved (family, friends, spouse)
• Learning environment

Question 8

Good learning environment

Answer 8

Well lit, appropriate furniture, quiet, good ventilation, comfortable temperature, private, in good hearing range of the teacher

Question 9

Learning barriers

Answer 9

Anything that stands in the way of effective learning

• Illiteracy and/or disabilities
• Cultural diversity
• Wrong teaching tools
• Special needs of children and older adults
• Emotional state

Question 10

3 domains of learning

Answer 10

Cognitive (brain)
- Learning new facts
Affective (emotional) 
- Attaching worth and value to acquired knowledge
Psychomotor (coordination/skills) 
- Practicing a demonstrated act