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A comparative evaluation of hospital versus clinic education of tuberculosis patients in Vancouver

University of British Columbia

A survey was conducted during the months of June and July 1976 at the Willow Chest Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia, using a questionnaire designed to test tuberculosis patients' knowledge on the cause, course, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis, and their attitude towards the patient education process. The questionnaire was administered to 159 new active tuberculosis patients attending the Clinic for follow-up treatment. Approximately half of this population had been hospitalized at Pearson Hospital during their initial treatment phase, while the other half was treated at the Willow Chest Clinic since the diagnosis of the disease. A control population of 162 patients matched by age, sex, education and ethnic origin was selected from patients attending the Clinic for other respiratory diseases. The objective of the study was to compare hospital versus clinic education of tuberculosis patients in Vancouver, since the product and the process of patient education have an important impact on the treatment and control of tuberculosis. The tuberculosis patients knew more about the disease than the non-tuberculosis patients. The Hospitalized patients had consistently and significantly higher scores than the Control group. The Non-Hospitalized patients had statistically higher scores than the Control only in the area of knowledge of treatment of tuberculosis. The patients who had been hospitalized knew more about the disease than patients who were treated on an ambulatory basis since the diagnosis of the disease. Biases such as that resulting from the selection process of the Study and Control groups, the design and administration of the questionnaire could have contributed to the differences in the scores. Age, education and ethnic origin were found to have significant impact on the knowledge of the patients. However, these variables had been adjusted for in the final analysis of the scores. Since the hospital had provided more patient education opportunities than the clinic, the higher scores could be due to the patient education process. Patient education could have increased the knowledge of tuberculosis among the hospitalized patients. The importance of good communication in patient education was reiterated. That these different groups of patients, by virtue of their differences in age, education and ethnic origin, had their unique education needs was evident from the patients' response. Hence different means of communicating disease information in varying amounts would be necessary. The use of non-tuberculosis patients to estimate the level of knowledge of tuberculosis patients prior to their disease has not been completely satisfactory. It is recommended that future patient education programs have mechanisms for evaluation built into their design. This would allow a better assessment of the effectiveness of patient education.

Text

2010-02-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21000

Health Care and Epidemiology

University of British Columbia

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