A narrative review of patient education in emergency departments: challenges and solutions

Abstract

Patient education in emergency departments faces complexities and challenges due to the wide variety of clinical care provided in this setting. Despite widespread recognition of the value and benefits of education, we frequently see that patient education in hospital emergency departments is less than optimal and that emergency departments are not employed as venues conducive to providing suitable and effective patient education. This study was conducted to ascertain the issues associated with patient education in emergency departments and the most relevant solutions. In this narrative review, the data were collected by searching the keywords patient education, emergency department, emergency medical services, health education, challenges of patient education, the importance of patient education, and barriers to patient education in Persian and English both separately and in combination using Boolean operators. The databases comprised Sid, Iranmedex, Magiran, Pubmed, Elsevier, Medlin, and Scopus, as well as the Google Scholar search engine. Sixty-five full-text articles were included in the study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results from the review of articles revealed that hospital emergency departments face challenges in educating patients, including environmental factors (overcrowding, lack of time), patients’ low health literacy levels, communication skills, nurses’attitudes, and interest in patient education, and nurses’ scientific knowledge. To revive and enhance patient education, nursing managers and emergency department nurses should work proportionately to the current challenges by developing novel, innovative approaches or implementing appropriate practical solutions that will drastically alter how this critical issue is carried out in hospital emergency departments.