Client Education Flashcards
Definition of client education
Providing client’s with the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviours relating to their health condition, in order to maintain or improve health, or slow disease progression
Why do we provide education?
To support client’s:
- Acquisition of knowledge - through providing info and learning experiences
- Acquisition of skills - through demonstration, mental rehearsal, practice and providing feedback reinforcement
- Bringing about behaviour change
Why we provide education part 2
- Allays client anxiety and dispels misconception
- Increases clients’ confidence and sense of control
- Helps clients to make informed choices
- Improves success of interventions
Philosophical approach
Client-centred, partnership approach
Individualised - tailored to client’s needs
Recognises client’s expertise, preferences and goals
What factors might impact a clients readiness to learn if they have recently been diagnosed with a medical or head injury?
- Mental health (anxiety, depression)
- Fear
- Acceptance or denial of illness
- Ability to concentrate
What is the Adult Learning Theory?
- The need to know - adults need to know why they need to learn something before they start learning
- Motivation - we learn best when we are internally motivated to do so
- The role of learner experience - adults come to the learning environment with vast knowledge and experiences
What are the four (4) different learning styles?
- Visual
- Auditory
- Kinesthetic
- Reflective
What would you do to help a VISUAL learner understand information?
Ask if they would like you to draw it
What would you do to help a AUDITORY learner understand information?
Speak to them, pace yourself, sequence the information and ask if they would like you to repeat anything
What would you do to help a KINESTHETIC learner understand information?
Ask if they would like to try it after you show them
What would you do to help a REFLECTIVE learner understand information?
Offer them more data or reading material
What do we provide information about?
- Role of health professional in the client’s care (what is an OT?)
- Causes/manifestations of diseases (e.g. cardiac diseases, risk factors, why people feel stress or pain)
- Information about symptoms and their management
- Explaining assessment findings (e.g. depression scale score)
- Explaining treatment strategies (e.g. how to modify occupations/environments)
What do we need to consider when providing information?
- Individual learning styles
- Educational level and cultural background
- relevance and meaningful examples
- Tailored information to suit individuals information needs
Advantages and disadvantage of verbal teaching
Easy
Can be used in group discussions, lectures, brainstorming
Much is forgotten
Advantages of written materials
- Reaches a lot of people
- Reinforces and expands on verbal information
- Can be referred to when needed
- Improves retention
What to consider when using written materials
- Font size
- Colour
- Graphics
- Too complex or use of jargon
- Layout
Other ways to deliver content
- Audio-visual material
- Models
- Websites
- Social media
- Text
Context and timing of information
WHEN
- Early in condition (needs to be repeated)
- Just before discharge from hospital
WHERE (influences the content)
- While in hospital
- When at home
How to support client’s acquisition of skills: explain and demonstrate (5)
- Ensure patient understands why this skill is important to them - how it will effect their ability to function and relate it to their goals
- Tailor/individualise their training
- Explain the skill to them
- Demonstrate the skill as a whole
- Break skill into parts, demonstrate parts of the skill
How to support client’s acquisition of skills: encourage client’s skill performance (6)
- Allow client to think through skill process before they perform it (mental rehearsal)
- Ask client to perform the skill (or its parts)
- Ask client to evaluate their performance
- Provide reinforcement and feedback by highlighting what they did well and suggesting what they could do differently next time
- Repeat, and gradually reduce reinforcement/feedback
- Collaborate with client to decide how and when they will practice
How to support client’s acquisition of skills: Extension work (3)
- Set ‘homework’ in collaboration with they client and check how they went at follow-up
- Provide patient with a more challenging (but achievable) skill/activity and let them problem solve to complete it
- Practice variability: change requirements of the skill/activity (environment, surface, etc.)
