SATISFACTION OF INPATIENTS ABOUT HEALTH EDUCATION AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY HOSPITAL

Abstract

Background: Health education for patients is one of the essential tasks of physicians in patient care and treatment. To improve the effectiveness of health care and treatment, physicians must spend more time with patients. The interaction of physicians in performing health education for patients must be really enthusiastic, dynamic and responsive to the needs of each patient. Objectives: This study aims to describe the satisfaction of inpatients about the health education communication activities of physicians in clinical departments of university hospitals at Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital in June and July - 2023. Materials and methods: A convenience sample of 210 inpatients in 07 clinical departments at the time of discharge from the hospital was surveyed in this descriptive, cross – sectional study. Prepared questionnaires for faceto-face interviews with 37 questions (built by referencing documents related to health education communication for patients, and at the same time proposing some new elements for further study). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. Results: The majority of the patients were female, accounting for 57.14 %, the average age was 52.01 ± 2.3. Patients had a positive attitude toward thehealth educati on communication methods of physicians, with a score of 69.59 ± 15.73. Most patients received health education in the form of individual consultations, accounting for 95.71 %. The percentage of doctors providing health education consultation to patients was 59.62 %. Patients had a positive attitude toward the health education communication methods of physicians (69.59 ± 15.73), the mean score of patients' evaluation of health education communication activities was 28.89 ± 4.66 and the content of medical education communication was 32.17 ± 10.18. Conclusion: This study shows that patients have positive attitudes toward health education at clinical departments, but patients mainly expect doctors to be the ones to provide information and conduct health education for them. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a health education program for patients that pays attention to the central role of doctors.