Registered Nurses’ Patient Education in Everyday Primary Care Practice

Abstract

Nurses’ patient education is important for building patients’ knowledge, understanding, and preparedness for self-management. The aim of this study was to explore the conditions for nurses’ patient education work by focusing on managers’ discourses about patient education provided by nurses. In 2012, data were derived from three focus group interviews with primary care managers. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews. The discursive practice comprised a discourse order of economic, medical, organizational, and didactic discourses. The economic discourse was the predominant one to which the organization had to adjust. The medical discourse was self-evident and unquestioned. Managers reorganized patient education routines and structures, generally due to economic constraints. Nurses’ pedagogical competence development was unclear, and practice-based experiences of patient education were considered very important, whereas theoretical pedagogical knowledge was considered less important. Managers’ support for nurses’ practical- and theoretical-based pedagogical competence development needs to be strengthened.

Topics and structure in preoperative nursing consultations with patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery

“…In a recent study, the managers regarded nurses’ patient education work as important, but had no real power, time to support and develop the conditions and prerequisites. Thus, a critical discussion is needed about both nurses’ and their leaders’ possibilities to optimise the teaching conditions .…”

“The Emperor's new clothes”: discourse analysis on how the patient is constructed in the new Swedish Patient Act

“…Bergh et al. (), Bergh, Friberg, Persson, and Dahlborg‐Lyckhage () claim that healthcare education aiming at deeper knowledge for the patient is rare. Over the past 60 years, Sweden has become more heterogeneous (SCB, ) and patients increasingly vary in their ability to actively participate in their care.…”

The invisible nature of learning: Patient education in nursing

“…Teaching and learning practice is multi-faceted and complex, comprising multiple theories, determinants of learning, instructional design, instructional methods and learning principles (Gagne, Golas, & Keller, 2005). However, in the nursing literature, the terms 'teaching' and 'learning' are commonly not defined clearly (Braungart et al, 2011;Fitzgerald, 2011;Thompson & Thompson, 2014). Moreover, healthcare and nursing authors appear often to focus on the synergy between the terms, rather than clarifying differences between these two concepts, despite their interdependence (Braungart et al, 2011;Fitzgerald, 2011).…”

“…It is the educational and cognitive psychology literature that describes processes by which nurses can understand how people learn. Learning involves how people take in information through their senses, connect it to their existing knowledge base and through various cognitive processes turn the information into knowledge that can be used effectively, to solve problems, become more aware of their own thinking and change their behaviours (Braungart, Braungart, & Gramet, 2011). Limited research into the cognitive learning principles of patient and family education has occurred.…”