Teach-Back Process as a Best Practice in Patient Education

• Main Author: Hoffman, Laura
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: ScholarWorks 2019
• Subjects: Patient Education; Self-Efficacy; Teach-Back; Nursing
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/6580; https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7859&context=dissertations

Limited health literacy is a national problem. Nurses are in a position to address patients' limited health literacy skills using a universal precautions approach through the teach-back process. The purpose of this project was to plan a program to educate nurses on best practices in patient education. The theoretical framework informing this work was Bandura's social cognitive theory, which asserts that increases in knowledge and self-efficacy are precursors to affecting behavior change. The logic model was used to guide the project planning processes. Evidentiary sources included literature obtained online and through database searches, input from a team of experts and institutional stakeholders, and surveys from project participants. Ongoing evaluation analyses of team members' feedback allowed for real-time changes to program content and meeting logistics. Team members' agreement about the meaningfulness of the project's goal, activities, and leader effectiveness revealed a mean score of 4.64 out of 5. Team members indicated that teach-back could improve patients' self-management ability and understanding of disease processes. The project outcome was a nurse education toolkit containing easy access to comprehensive learning resources tailored for use at a critical-access hospital. Nurses can positively impact social change by honing skills in the teach-back process as a way to evaluate patients' understanding of self-management and understanding of disease processes. The patients' understanding of educational materials pertinent to their disease process, self-care, and discharge is vital to their well-being and safety in the post hospital environment.