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AHA: Patient education should be individualized
Health care professionals should use a multifaceted approach, not simply written information, to educate patients and their families about risks for CVD, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.
“As hospital stays and clinic visits get shorter, the responsibility for patient management has increasingly shifted to patients and their families,” Susan Barnason, PhD, RN, professor of nursing practice at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said in a press release. “Patient education can’t be one-size-fits-all. It needs to meet the patients where they are, so clinicians need to assess their patients’ health literacy and cognitive skills, and include family and other caregivers when needed.”
Barnason and colleagues studied therapeutic patient education, an approach to teaching patients and families about self-management of CVD-related risk and avoidable complications. Studies have reported the positive benefit of therapeutic patient education, but it is unknown what strategies help overcome barriers to therapeutic patient education, including health literacy and cognition.
The trials included in the statement studied therapeutic patient education in individuals with hypertension, CVD, HF, atrial fibrillation and included self-management interventions in recognizing and managing symptoms, lifestyle changes and medication management.
Generally, the studies using interventions to implement self-management of CVD were successful in improving medication use and quality of life. Team-based approaches had more significant outcomes than studies with a single intervention.
“Positive effects of self-management [therapeutic patient education] for CVD patients were apparent in many of the studies; however, similar to other studies, precise or standard descriptions of the [therapeutic patient education] components were often limited, which made it difficult to thoroughly determine the interrelationships between the [therapeutic patient education] components and aspects of self-management targeted,” the researchers wrote.
Barriers to implementing therapeutic patient education include healthy literacy, cognitive impairment and time.
Barnason and colleagues made several recommendations for implementing therapeutic patient education into clinical practice. Interventions that address self-management could be taught during cardiac rehab. Additionally, heath literacy should be assessed and used to tailor interventions, the researchers wrote. Varied modes of intervention delivery, including use of telemedicine and technology, and a team-based approach will be beneficial to address the wide needs of patients.
“These recommendations delineate implications for clinical practice and areas for future research to use [therapeutic patient education] to improve outcomes for [CV] patients,” the researchers wrote. – by Cassie Homer
Disclosures: Barnason reports no relevant financial disclosures. Two other researchers report receiving consultant/advisory board fees from Boston Scientific and Milestone Pharmaceuticals.