HEALTH EDUCATION PROCESS

• Health education is one of the most essential interventions that a nurse performs
• Educators


  Serve as facilitators helping the learner become aware of what needs to be known, why knowing is valuable, and how to be actively involved in acquiring information
• Educators


  Give support, encouragement, and direction during the process of learning
• Learner is the single most important person in the education process
• Assessment of the learner


  The first step in the education process
• Assessing the learner

  • Learning Needs
  • Readiness to Learn
  • Learning Styles
• Assessment for Learning


  Enables teachers to use information about students' knowledge, understanding, and skills to inform their teaching
• Assessment as Learning

  Involves students in the learning process where they monitor their own progress, ask questions, and practice skills
• Assessment of Learning

  Assists teachers to use evidence of student learning to assess student achievement against learning goals and standards
• Lack of time is the number one reason that nurse educators shortchange the assessment phase
• Learning needs


  The gap between what someone knows and what someone needs or wants to know
• Gaps

  Arise because of a lack of knowledge, attitude, or skill
• 90-95% of most learners can master a subject with a high degree of success given sufficient time and appropriate support
• Educator's task


  Facilitate the determination of what exactly needs to be learned and to identify approaches for presenting information in a way that the learner will best understand
• Important Steps in the Assessment of Learning Needs

  1. Identify the learner

  2. Choose the right setting

  3. Collect data about the learner

  4. Collect data from the learner

  5. Involve members of the healthcare team

  6. Prioritize needs

  7. Determine availability of educational resources

  8. Assess the demands of the organizations

  9. Take time-management issues into account
• Identify the learner


  For educator to provide the right information to the specific learner
• Choose the right setting

  Establishing a trusting environment helps learners feel a sense of security in confiding information, they believe their concerns are taken seriously and are considered important, and feel respected. Ensuring privacy and confidentiality is recognized as essential to establishing a trusting relationship.
• Collect data about the learner

  Data about the learner can help the educator determine what content to include in teaching sessions
• Collect data from the learner


  Collected data from the learner helps educators to identify what they need to know
• Involve members of the healthcare team

  Other health professionals likely have insights into patients' or relatives' needs that may help to produce a successful health education
• Prioritize needs


  Prioritizing the identified needs helps the patient or staff member to set realistic and achievable learning goals
• Determine availability of educational resources


  Learning needs may be useless to proceed with interventions if the proper education resources are not available and it may be better to focus on other identified needs
• Assess the demands of the organizations

  Educators should be familiar with the standards of performance required in various employee categories, along with job descriptions and hospital, professional, and agency regulations
• Take time-management issues into account


  Learners must be given time to offer their own perceptions of the learning needs. The educator expects them to take charge and become actively involved in the learning process.
• Criteria for Prioritizing Learning Needs

  • Mandatory (Q1) - learning needs in this category must be met immediately
  • Desirable (Q2-3) - needs that are not life dependent but that are related to well-being or the overall ability to provide quality care in situations involving changes in institutional procedure
  • Possible (Q3-4) - needs information that is nice to know but not essential or acquired or situations in which the learning need is not directly related to daily activities
• Data such as subjective and objective data must be obtained by the nurse.
• Informal conversations


  There's no pattern in this conversation and the nurse educator must rely on active listening to pick up cues and information regarding learning needs
• Structured interviews


  Most commonly used among the forms of needs assessment to solicit the learner's point of view and there's a pattern in this method
• Focus groups


  Involve getting together in small number of potential learners to determine areas of educational need by using group discussion to identify points of view are knowledge about a certain topic
• Self-administered questionnaires


  Educators can obtain learners' written responses to questions about learning means by using survey instruments
• Checklist


  • One of the most common forms of questionnaires
• Tests


  Giving written pretests/post-tests before and after teaching is planned can help identify the knowledge levels of potential learners regarding a particular subject and assist and identify their specific learning needs
• Observations


  Inspection is necessary in this method of assessing the learning needs what can have the educator draw conclusions about established patterns of behavior that cannot and should not be drawn from a single observation
• Documentations


  Anything such as initial assessment, progress notes, nursing care plan, staff notes, and discharge planning forms can provide information about the learning needs of clients
• Self-assessment – an important area to consider when assessing the learning needs of nursing students and staff.
• Assessing the learning needs of nursing staff is important
• William (1988) specifically addresses the importance of identifying the learning needs of staff nurses using several methods
• Written job descriptions


  Required to effectively carry out job responsibilities that can reflect the potential learning needs of staff
• Formal and informal questions are often asked for ideas for educational programs and these ideas reflect what staff perceive as needs
• Quality assurance reports-Trends found in quality incident reports indicating safety violations or errors in procedures are a source of information in establishing learning needs of staff that education can address