Asthma education tailored to individual patient needs can optimise partnerships in asthma self-management.
This paper studies the effects of patient education, tailored to individual needs of patients as part of an asthma self-management program. A tailored education program was designed which took into account individual information needs of patients by using a feedback instrument. Totally 98 steroid dependent asthmatics entered the tailored education program, 95 patients received usual care. Outcome measures were information exchanged and patient satisfaction. Study duration was 6 months. Patients in the tailored education group showed a significant reduction in information need (P=0.005). Patient satisfaction increased from 87.9 to 93.7 in this group while this did not change in the usual care group (P=0.000). Use of this tailored education program improved the GP-patient interaction within the context of a clinically effective asthma self-management program. Findings from this study may be applicable to other chronic conditions as well.
Department of General Practice/Family Medicine, University Medical Centre St Radboud Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Bart P A
BP
Thoonen
Tjard R J
TR
Schermer
Margreet
M
Jansen
Ivo
I
Smeele
Annelies J E
AJ
Jacobs
Richard
R
Grol
Onno C P
OC
van Schayck
D000208:Acute Disease; D000328:Adult; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020380:Needs Assessment; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D016730:Program Development; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods*