Nurses' Understanding and Evaluation of Objectives of Patient Education

Abstract

Objective : The nurses' perception of patient education was studied to clarify how they understood and evaluated objectives of patient education. Methods : Our original questionnaire (Cronbach's internal cohesion : α value=0.90) was distributed to medical organizations in 4 prefectures to be answered by 2,049 nurses at these organizations. Results : Valid responses were obtained from 1,240 nurses (effective response rate 60.4%), and four factors of objectives of patient education were extracted by factor analysis. The perceived objectives of patient education were classified into the following four types according to the proportions of the four factors : “self-objectification type” (59.0%), “QOL-improvement type” (16.1%), “knowledge behavior correction type” (6.1%), and “subjective transformation type” (6.0%). No significant difference was observed in the frequency of these types according to the subjects' attributes such as the age, duration of career, occupational type, and occupational rank. Conclusions : There were four types in the nurses' understanding of the objectives of patient education. The results suggest the necessity of teaching the variability of objectives of patient education depending on the situation in basic courses of nursing.