Scand J Caring Sci; 2011; 25: 558–566
Learning to live with illness: experiences of people recently diagnosed with diabetes
Background: The process of learning to live with an illness is complex. ...By better understanding the learning process for persons with diabetes in the early stage of the illness, the role of the health care can be shown.
Aim: To reach an understanding of how learning to live with diabetes is experienced in the first 2 months after diagnosis.
Method: A qualitative descriptive design was used, and interviews were conducted. Thirteen participants with a recent diagnosis of diabetes were included and asked to narrate about their experience of living with diabetes. Qualitative inductive content analysis was used.
Findings: Four themes emerged: ‘taken over by a new reality’, ‘the body plays a role in life’, ‘different ways of learning’ and ‘the healthcare service as a necessary partner’.
Conclusion: People with short‐term experience of the illness gained knowledge through personal resources such as their own experience and self‐reflection. The learning process includes an inner dialogue between the self, the body and the life. Participants were concerned with grasping a new reality and understanding a different self and body where lifestyle changes and uncertainty were present. When health care was accessible and sensitive to their needs, those with short‐term experience of diabetes chose the staff as key players in the early stages of their life with diabetes.
Aim
This study aimed to identify and prioritize the perceived learning needs of patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention or open‐heart surgery.
Background
Identifying learning needs ...for post‐cardiac intervention patients is essential to establish successful health education programmes based on patient central care.
Methods
A descriptive comparative design was employed on a convenience sample of 260 patients who underwent a percutaneous coronary intervention and 105 patients who underwent open‐heart surgery patients. Participants had completed the Patient Learning Needs Scale. Data were collected between 1 October 2014 and 31 June 2015.
Results
Patients from the two groups highly requesting health and recovery related information. They scored all learning need topics as important or highly important for them. The top priority learning need for both patient groups was ‘information about wound care’, and the lowest priority learning need topic was ‘physical activity’.
Conclusions
The learning needs of both groups were very close, which indicated that educational secondary prevention programmes’ content can be prepared in a unified structure for those patients. Although, specific headings can be used to address the unique needs that emerge from having a specific cardiac interventional procedure.
Implications for nursing and health policy
The fact that wound care and medications are areas of highest learning needs for patients requires health policy decision makers to address these topics at the time of hospital discharge. In addition, a policy focus on considering patients’ actual learning needs requires establishment and managerial support. As patients’ learning needs might change later after discharge, the health services should be proactive and focus on continuous support for patients after hospital discharge. Secondary prevention programmes should incorporate health education topics based on patients’ own views. This can be done by giving higher priority to understand patients’ needs, put much more effort into how to meet patients’ information needs and to create a more engaging learning environment for patients and their families.
Abstract Objective To assess the impact of numeracy and health literacy on client's ability to learn information orally communicated during a BRCA 1/2 genetic counseling session. Methods Fifty-nine ...videotaped simulated genetic counseling sessions were shown to 246 analogue clients (AC) recruited to imagine themselves as the client in the genetic counseling session. AC numeracy, genetic literacy, state and trait anxiety, and decisional conflict were assessed. The primary outcome was AC learning about BRCA 1/2. Results Health literacy and numeracy were moderately correlated, and each independently predicted learning. Higher numeracy was associated with higher knowledge scores only among ACs with adequate literacy. Decisional conflict was not related to literacy, numeracy, or knowledge acquisition. It was, however, inversely related to state anxiety so that the higher post-session state anxiety, the lower the AC's decisional conflict. Conclusion Numeracy and health literacy are associated with learning of orally communicated information during genetic counseling. It appears that numeracy can facilitate learning for literate subjects; it does not, however, make any difference in learning ability of clients with significant literacy deficits. Practice implications Numeracy plays an important role in client's ability to learn information communicated during medical sessions, especially among clients who are otherwise regarded as literate.
Purpose
Discharge information needs are known to be common problems for total hip and knee arthroplasty (THA, TKA) patients due to surgical and technological developments of arthroplasty, treatment ...procedures, and reducing the duration of hospitalization. The purpose of this study is to collect individual interviews about information needs of patients who have had THA or TKA for the first time.
Design/Methods
This quasi‐qualitative study was conducted in orthopedic wards of a university hospital in Turkey. Descriptive data were collected using a Patient Information Form and the Patient Learning Needs Scale (PLNS). Individual interviews data were collected by open‐ended questions related to PLNS subscales 24‐48 hours before discharge.
Findings
The mean age of the 37 patients studied was 64.97 ± 13.66, 70.3% were female, 56.8% had THA for the first time. Similar to individual interviews, the patients reported that the most important learning needs were about treatment and complications, activities of living, and enhancing quality of life. In addition, patient's age had a significant impact on PLNS scores.
Conclusions
This study sought to determine Turkish THA or TKA patients’ priority of learning needs on discharge.
Clinical Relevance
After an evaluation of the conclusions, healthcare professionals can contribute to the development of scheduling programs for patients who are discharged following THA or TKA surgical procedures.
Patients in surgical service units have higher expectations for treatment and care. The aims of this study were to determine nursing care satisfaction and information requirements at the time of ...discharge of patients from a day surgery unit and to assess the effects of demographics. The study was conducted on 291 patients undergoing day case surgery. Patient perception scale for nursing care (PPSN) and the patient learning needs scale (PLNS) were used and total and sub-dimension points averages were calculated and then compared with demographic data using the Kruskal-Wallis test. The results were evaluated at the
p
< 0.05 significance level with 95 % confidence intervals. Of the patients, 58.8 % (
n
= 171) were females and the average age was 49.5 ± 15.3 years. PPSN and PLNS total point averages were 68.16 ± 10.17 and 178.53 ± 27.59, respectively. A significant difference was determined in PPSN total point average with regard to previous hospitalisations; the PPSN total point average was higher for patients with prior hospitalisations (
p
< 0.001). Significant differences were determined between PLNS total point average and age group, marital status, receiving discharge training, and education level (
p
= 0.008, 0.006, <0.001, and 0.015, respectively). Differences were found in the PLNS sub-dimension point averages between groups, especially with regard to age group and educational level. We showed that patient satisfaction and patient information requirements could change according to demographic features of the patients at a day case surgery unit. In this respect, healthcare providers should offer healthcare services by evaluating the personal characteristics of patients because this is important for their satisfaction.
• The purpose of this study was to describe patients' learning needs after hip arthroplasty and compare them prior to and 2 weeks after hospital discharge.
• Data were collected in two phases from 22 ...surgical wards in 17 hospitals in Finland using a Canadian Patient Learning Needs Scale (Galloway et al., 1996). The first questionnaire (n=212, 81%) was completed before hospital discharge and the second (n=144, 55%) was completed at home after hospital discharge.
• Results indicated that patients' learning needs diminished significantly after hospital discharge. In both questionnaires patients felt that the most important information was about complications and symptoms. Information about medication was ranked the second most important.
• Demographic variables such as age, gender, education and working life were clearly related to learning needs. Women over 60 years old, and less educated and retired respondents had many learning needs.
The paper deals with the planning of eHealth systems in the area of chronic care from a patient-centred perspective. The particular area is heart failure (HF) and systems that support patients’ ...possibilities to be active learners during the care processes. A better understanding of this process is hoped to create a basis for the development of appropriate information systems or information technology (IS/IT) support of learning processes. The objective of this paper is the development of a better understanding of the challenges of chronic illness with special focus on HF. The results are presented as a planning framework that guides the choice and design of ICT-based support systems.
The focus of this paper consists of investigations into a strategic planning framework for information systems in support of patient-centered care (PCC) processes. The planning perspective that ...underpins the research includes learning theories, organizational learning and knowledge management in general. A brief review of current PCC goals and perspectives is used as a starting point for an investigation of PCC activities and support system. The examples of PCC activities are organized as a learning process and presented in a framework.
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