KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF PATIENT TEACHING AMONG NURSES WORKING IN TERTIARY HEALTH INSTITUTIONS IN ENUGU

📄 Project Abstract

The well known parable if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a life time, is apt for the illustration of the importance of patient teaching or education. Patient teaching or education involves helping patients become better informed about their condition, medical procedure and choices they have regarding treatment (Martin, 2012). Patient teaching is as old as nursing profession. This can be seen from the achievements of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing in improving the standards for the care of war casualties in the Crimean war. Also in the Nightingale's vision of nursing which included public health promotion roles of nurses which was only partially addressed in the early days of nursing (Berman, Snyder, Kozier, & Erb, 2012). Though other health professionals like physicians, pharmacists, registered dietician etc participate in patient teaching, nurses as educators play a key role in improving health of the patie...