HEALTH EDUCATION

• Teaching is an important aspect of the nurse’s professional role whether it be educating patients and their family members, colleagues, or nursing students.
• “Patient education has been a part of health care since the first healer gave the first patient advice about treating his (or her) ailments”
• Nurses in the role of educators must understand the forces, both historical and present day, that have influenced and continue to influence their responsibilities in practice.
• education was, in fact, one of the most common interventions.
• Florence Nightingale emerged as a resolute advocate of the educational responsibilities of district public health nurse
• Health Teaching in Towns and Villages, which advocated for school teaching of health rules as well as health teaching in the home.
• The National League of Nursing Education (NLNE) recognized that public health nurses were essential to the well-being of communities and the teaching they provided to individuals, families, and groups was considered “a precursor to modern patient and health education”
• In 1953, Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals issued a technical bulletin titled Patient Education and the Hospital Program — identified the nature and scope of patient education and provided guidance to all hospital services involved in patient education.
• patient education began to be seen as a specific task where emphasis was placed on educating individual patients rather than providing general public health education.
• Developments during this time, such as the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the consumer and self-help movement, all affected patient education.
• Mid-1960s, patients were recognized as healthcare consumers
• Educational prescription – would base teaching on individual patient needs and be included as part of the patient’s record — represented one of the earliest mentions of the documentation of patient education.
• The Need for Patient Education — concept of patient education that provided information about disease and treatment as well as teaching patients how to stay healthy
• President Richard Nixon issued a message to Congress using the term health education
• Patient’s Bill of Rights, affirmed in 1972 and then formally published in 1973 — outlines patients’ rights to receive current information about their diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis in understandable terms as well as information that enables them to make informed decisions about their health care.
• The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), established nursing standards for patient education as early as 1993. Known as mandates, describe the type and level of care, treatment, and services that agencies or organizations must provide to receive accreditation.
• All healthcare providers must consider the literacy level, educational background, language skills, and culture of every client during the education process
• The role of the nurse as educator has undergone a paradigm shift — what once was a disease-oriented approach to a more prevention-oriented approach — focus is on teaching for the promotion and maintenance of health.
• Education, which was once done as part of discharge planning at the end of hospitalization, has expanded to become part of a comprehensive plan of care that occurs across the continuum of the healthcare delivery process.
• “from disease-oriented patient education(DOPE)to prevention-oriented patient education(POPE) to ultimately become health-oriented patient education(HOPE)” — emphasis is now on empowering patients to use their potentials, abilities, and resources to the fullest.
• By the early 1900s, public health nurses in the United States clearly understood the significance of the role of the nurse as teacher in preventing disease and in maintaining the health of society.
• patient teaching has been recognized as an independent nursing function — nurses have expanded their practice to include the broader concepts of health and illness.
• 1918, National League for Nursing (NLN), observed the importance of health teaching as a function within the scope of nursing practice.
• 1938, NLNE recognized nurses as agents for the promotion of health and the prevention of illness in all settings in which they practiced — fundamentally a teacher and a change agent regardless of the setting
• 1950, the NLNE had identified course content in nursing school curricula to prepare nurses to assume the role. Teaching skills, Developmental, Educational psychology, Principles of educational process of teaching and learning
• American Nurses Association (ANA, 2015) has for years issued statements on the functions, standards, and qualifications for nursing practice, of which patient teaching is a key element.
• International Council of Nurses (ICN, 2012) has long endorsed the nurse’s role as patient educator to be an essential component of nursing care delivery.
• Nurse practice acts (NPAs) — assist them to maintain optimal level of wellness, prevent disease, manage illness and develop skills to give supportive care to family members
• Nurses can achieve the professional goal of providing cost-effective, safe, and high-quality care
• training the trainer — that is, preparing nursing staff through continuing education, inservice programs, and staff development to maintain and improve their clinical skills and teaching abilities.
• The purpose of patient education is to increase the competence and confidence of clients for self-management.
• interactive, partnership education approach provides clients with opportunities to explore and expand their self-care abilities.
• Illness is a natural life process, but so is humankind’s ability to learn.
• As Orr (1990) observes, “Illness can become an educational opportunity . . . a ‘teachable moment’ when ill health suddenly encourages [patients] to take a more active role in their care”
• The purpose of staff and student education is to increase the competence and confidence of nurses to function independently in providing care to the consumer.
• The goal of education efforts is to improve the quality of care delivered by nurses.
• The primary aims of nurse educators, then, should be to nourish clients, mentor staff, and serve as teachers, clinical instructors, and preceptors for nursing students.
• The education process is a systematic, sequential, logical, scientifically based, planned course of action consisting of two major interdependent operations: teaching and learning — process forms a continuous cycle that also involves two interdependent players: the teacher and the learner — the education process is a framework for a participatory, shared approach to teaching and learning.
• The outcomes of the nursing process are achieved when the physical and psychosocial needs of the client are met.
• The outcomes of the education process are achieved when changes in knowledge, attitudes, and skills occur.