A comparison of two educational interventions for the cognitive empowerment of ambulatory orthopaedic surgery patients

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the cognitive empowerment of ambulatory orthopaedic surgery patients when using Internet-based education (experiment) in contrast to face to face education conducted by a nurse (control). Elective ambulatory orthopaedic surgery patients were randomized to either an experiment group (n = 72) receiving Internet-based education, or to a control group (n = 75) receiving face-to-face education with a nurse. The data were collected at three different time points: before the preoperative education session, after preoperative education and 2 weeks after the operation. Three structured instruments were used: the Knowledge Test, the Sufficiency of Knowledge and the Orthopaedic Patient Knowledge Instrument. Patients in both groups showed improvement in their knowledge. However, patients who received Internet-based education improved their knowledge level significantly more in the ethical (p = 0.005) and functional (p = 0.023) dimensions and also in total (p = 0.033) than those patients who underwent face-to-face education with a nurse. In addition, patients in the experiment group had higher scores in sufficiency of knowledge in the experiential (p = 0.050) and financial (p = 0.048) dimensions and, moreover, their scores in sufficiency of knowledge in the ethical dimension improved significantly more (p = 0.008) during the study period than patients in the control group. Improvements in the patients' level and sufficiency of knowledge within both groups indicates an increase in patients' cognitive empowerment. Internet-based education can be used in ambulatory orthopaedic surgery patient education for increasing patients' cognitive empowerment.