COMPARISON OF PATIENT EDUCATION METHODS - EFFECTS ON KNOWLEDGE OF CARDIAC REHABILITATION PRINCIPLES

Patient education is an important component of cardiac rehabilitation. It is also a portion of most other therapeutic interventions provided by occupational therapists. This study compared two methods for deliv ering patient education for inpatients recovering from coronary artery bypass grafting surgery. The traditional intervention was therapist-d irected, whereas the collaborative intervention used shared control by the therapist and patients for structuring patient education sessions . When viewed as a whole, the two methods did not result in significan tly different levels of knowledge of rehabilitation principles. Howeve r, a pretesting effect resulted ii a significant difference in knowled ge on the basis of whether or not subjects took a pretest, and this co ndition also interacted with group assignment. These relationships are explored with a recommendation that occupational therapists study whe ther pretesting effects can be used in a deliberate fashion to improve learning during patient education.