Patient Education in Health Care: Exploring Strategies for Effective Comprehension, Recall, and Compliance

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Patient education is recognized to be essential in orthotic and prosthetic care. However, there are no current standardized methods of educating patients. This literature review looked at the most effective current methods of educating patients in terms of comprehension, recall, and compliance. Methods Inclusion and exclusion criteria for articles were determined. Search strategy was developed using keywords, MeSH terms, and Boolean operators and applied to three different databases (Medline Ovid, Embase, and Web of Science). Results After searching on Medline Ovid, Embase, and Web of Science, 833 articles were found after deduplication, with 49 articles included in the final review. Conclusions The review found that delivering the education in terms of behavioral advice and multimodal methods was the most effective. Patients’ preference of education delivery, mood, attitude toward their condition, and relationship with their provider also need to be considered. Further research needs to be done on effective methods of delivering patient education. Clinical Relevance This research has the potential to lead to future studies in educating patients who utilize orthotic and prosthetic devices. The aim of the project is to eventually standardize or create best practice guidelines for patient education in the field of Orthotics and Prosthetics with the intent of improving comprehension, recall, and compliance.