ABSTRACT
As we have seen in Chapter 4, assessment and planning are linked activities which prepare both nurse and patient for teaching and learning. The bulk of this chapter is concerned with strategies for actual teaching-in other words, the intervention phase, during which the nurse attempts, in collaboration with the patient, to put into practice the educational objectives she has defined and negotiated with the patient as a result of assessment and through the process of planning the educational experience. In a well-designed educational intervention, the patient is already enlisted as an active learner through these earlier processes, which ‘set the scene’ for what is to be taught. Similarly, planning is itself linked to the eventual evaluation of the extent of the success of the intervention, usually in terms of the patient’s learning, and often is measured in terms of behaviour change. Like Chapter 4, this chapter attempts to offer guidance for the successful practice of educational interventions through reference to published research. The chapter also describes some barriers to effective patient education. Once again, it will be useful to consider the chapter in conjunction with the discussion of learning theories presented in Chapter 3.
