Learning through lived experience: An educational tool to improve health professionals’ insight into the perspectives of patients

Abstract

IntroductionHealthcare professionals tried to adhere to a chronically ill patient's daily regimen for two weeks as an educational tool to increase their insight into patients' perspectives. MethodsParticipants responded to a baseline-, daily-and evaluating questionnaire. The primary outcome: on a scale from 0-10, how much insight do you have into the perspective of patients? Associations between baseline-and final data were established using paired T-tests. Results108 Participants were included and complete data were available for 68 cases (63%). The participants' self-reported insight into patients' perspectives significantly increased (from 3,92 to 5,30; MD 1,38; P<0,0001). Furthermore, participants had thought more often about what it was like for patients to live with a chronic disease (from 3,59 to 7,55; MD 3,96; P<0,0001), thought it was more strenuous to partake in research (from 6,79 to 7,39; MD 0,60; P=0,006), and found it more difficult to adhere to a patients' regimen than initially thought (from 7,50 to 5,85; MD -1,65; P<0,0001). ConclusionLearning through lived experience is an effective educational tool to improve healthcare professionals' insight into patients' perspectives. Further research should focus on repeating this experiment in a controlled setting, including different target populations (e.g., students and residents), and involving other healthcare organizations.

Perspective-Taking and Perspective-Sharing in Pediatric Education: Exploring Connections Between Strategies of Medical Students and Patients&rsquo; Caregivers

“…Increasingly patients are involved in medical education and new initiatives are developed in which students learn about patient perspectives from patients themselves. For instance by interviewing patients with chronic conditions [ 7 ], following a patient’s daily regime [ 8 ], home visiting families of children with special needs [ 9 ], or filming patients with serious chronic illness in their daily lives [ 10 ]. However, reviews on patient involvement have demonstrated that little is known on how students learn from patients [ 11 12 13 ].…”