Co-creating an empowering health education intervention for urological cancer patients

Violet Petit-Steeghs,Jacqueline Ew Broerse,Jurriaan Oosterman,Carina Acm Pittens

doi:10.1177/00178969211035169

Abstract

Objective: The effectiveness of health education for patients has often been suboptimal. The neglect of a focus on empowerment and the presence of implementation barriers have been put forward as possible explanations for this. This study aimed to gain insight into how to co-create and develop an empowerment theory-based health education intervention for urological cancer patients. Design: Bravo’s empowerment intervention model provided the theoretical foundations for the work undertaken with urological cancer patients in the Netherlands, using a participatory interactive learning and action approach. Method: Insights into needs regarding health education were obtained through semi-structured interviews with patients ( n = 22) and health professionals ( n = 17). Subsequently, eight co-creation sessions ( n = 30) were organised to translate these needs into a health education intervention. Results: An intervention in the form of digital patient information was developed. The information offered provides a view of the different care steps based on clinical guidelines but personalised in different ways. By connecting patients’ empowerment needs to the information provided, and by taking health professionals’ perspectives into account, barriers to health education were made visible and addressed. Conclusion: Patient empowerment theory proved valuable in better aligning a participatory research process with the empowerment needs of urological cancer patients. The programme theory developed may offer a valuable template for the development of future health education interventions.

Highlights

Patients are increasingly expected to be responsible for their own disease and care management, but often experience difficulties in doing so (Jerant et al, 2005)
To develop the programme theory for the health education intervention for patients, Bravo et al.’s (2015) patient empowerment intervention model was used as a starting point (Figure 1)
Study findings reveal how the combination of programme theory and a participatory process strengthened the development of an empowerment theory-based health education intervention for urological cancer patients

Summary

Introduction

Patients are increasingly expected to be responsible for their own disease and care management, but often experience difficulties in doing so (Jerant et al, 2005). Health education interventions are designed to increase patients’ knowledge about disease and care management (Davison and Degner, 1997; Wilkes et al, 2000) and are expected to lead to more informed and empowered patients The empowerment of patients could subsequently shift power and responsibilities from health professionals to patients. This shift may improve the quality of care through, for instance, better treatment decisionmaking and the use of self-management opportunities The impact on patient empowerment is often suboptimal (Kuijpers et al, 2013; Mason et al, 2008), itself the result of a neglect of empowerment conceptualisations in the health education literature. Empowerment carries different connotations in different contexts and among different population groups (Jupp et al, 2010; Zimmerman, 2000)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion