Date of Graduation

Spring 5-17-2019

Document Type

Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

College/School

School of Nursing and Health Professions

Department/Program

Nursing

Program

Family Nurse Practitioner

First Advisor

Jodie Sandhu

Second Advisor

Alexa Curtis

Abstract

Background: Health literacy is a complicated and perplexing topic for those not trained in the medical field. Patients possess pieces of health literacy to some degree, while some have none at all. Limited health literacy can pose a very threatening risk on a patient’s well-being, interfering with their self-care and health maintenance, possibly creating more obstacles for the patient if health instructions and education are not clearly understood. This can lead to increased health expenditures due to treating the effects of poor health maintenance in addition to emergency room visits that may have not been necessary had the patient understood their health care instructions better. The teach-back method has proven accessible and effortless to use, while also being applicable in any health care setting globally. The teach-back method has shown to consistently increase patient proficiency in health literacy and medical knowledge, while minimizing the potential for misinterpretation.

Method: A training seminar for teach back method was designed to provide health care providers with knowledge and skills to apply teach-back method during patient interactions, in an effort to enhance patient health literacy and adherence to medical recommendations.

Design: A 1-hour educational seminar exposing providers to the teach back method, with practice cases for simulating the use of teach back, and discussion about personal scenarios and experience to enhance comfort level.

Result: Pre-intervention data was collected and compared to post-intervention data from participants (n=14) and found that the teach-back method not only positively improves patient health outcomes but also provider’s satisfaction with the approach. Provider utilization of the teach-back method in practice increased to 100% after the educational seminar intervention. The confidence that providers possessed when it came to utilizing the teach-back method increased from 78.57% to 100% after the intervention. In addition, 100% of providers stated they felt utilization of the teach-back method has positively impacted their patient’s health outcomes. The sustainability of the application of continuing the teach-back method was verified via provider’s response to the post intervention survey where 100% (n=14) confirmed they are very likely to use the teach-back method with patients.

Conclusion: The teach-back method is an evidence-based tool that has been proven to be successful in implementing and evaluating the intervention of this study. Participants should exhibit an understanding and new habit in educating patients via the use of the teach-back method, to assist in maximizing the patient’s level of understanding when it comes to medical instructions and knowledge.

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