The Practice of Patient Education among Public Hospital Nurses in Malaysia

Abstract

Patient education is the process of influencing patient behaviour with using a combination method such as teaching, counselling and behaviour modification techniques to increasing the knowledge and maintain or improve health. Patient education is one way of communication between patient and nurses, which provides the necessary knowledge for enhancing patient care and potentially affecting their health outcomes. By doing the exploration on the current patient education practice, the study perhaps to overcome the issue of hospital readmission and patient able to manage their activities of daily living after receiving effective patient education. The study aims to investigate the perception and practice of patient education among nurses in one of the public hospital in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to identify the perception and factors influencing the practice of patient education among public hospital nurses. Stratified Random Sampling was used for the sampling technique. A total of 246 staff nurses were involved in this study. A self-administered questionnaire was used in this study for obtained data. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, version 21 was used to analyse the data. The study revealed that most of the nurses perceived patient education as a high priority in nursing care and it was nursing responsibility to provide patient education. Findings indicated that lack of time, inadequate staffing and lack of knowledge were significant factors that influenced the practice of patient education. Years of working experience among the nurses was found to be significantly associated with priority for patient teaching. In conclusion, public hospital nurses were having a positive attitude towards patient education but could not practice completely. In order to enhance patient education, a more strategy is required to address inadequate staffing, lack of time, and lack of knowledge. This study needs to be extended into further research in order to enhance the nurses’ roles as patient educators.