None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
‘Teach-back’ can help providers identify when a patient has difficulty understanding health information. The strategy involves asking patients to explain in their own words what they have just been told and then working with that patient to clarify any misunderstandings. Evidence from multiple studies shows teach-back improves health outcomes and safety. This study aims to evaluate the use of teach-back in Western Health (WH) orthopaedic service at Williamstown Hospital. The service will implement teach-back in pre-discharge education for patients following arthroplasty. Staff and researchers will co-design a strategy for ensuring that teach-back is used in a systematic way within the unit. Teach-back will then be implemented over a 4-month period. We will evaluate the impact of teach-back on both patients and staff. For patients, we will compare outcomes between those who are admitted to the unit before and after staff are trained in teach-back. We will also survey staff to evaluate whether they feel more confident about providing education. This study will also assess the uptake of teach-back in the unit (‘implementation’). We will interview staff about their experiences using teach-back including frequency of use. Findings from this study will provide further evidence for the effectiveness of teach-back, and guidance for other services seeking to implement teach-back into routine care.
Interventions
‘Teach-back’ involves health providers asking patients to explain in their own words what they have just been told and then working with that patient to clarify any misunderstandings. The intervention is the addition of teach-back to usual education about activity, medication and prevention of dislocation that is provided before discharge to patients with arthroplasty. This usual education is currently provided on a one-to-one basis by a clinician (usually a physiotherapist) using written resour
‘Teach-back’ involves health providers asking patients to explain in their own words what they have just been told and then working with that patient to clarify any misunderstandings. The intervention is the addition of teach-back to usual education about activity, medication and prevention of dislocation that is provided before discharge to patients with arthroplasty. This usual education is currently provided on a one-to-one basis by a clinician (usually a physiotherapist) using written resources and verbal instruction. The time taken is approximately 10-15 minutes. For the teach-back intervention, clinicians will summarise the pre-discharge information into 2-3 standardised key points and then check the patient's understanding by asking them to explain back in their own words what they have understood. The clinician will then work with the patient to clarify misunderstandings. The intervention is expected to add approximately 5 minutes to the education session. To support fidelity of the intervention, the education content will be standardised and training and resources will be provided to all staff. Staff will also be asked to record which patients received teach-back. The patient participant group are not randomised. A comparison group will comprise eligible patients admitted to the orthopaedic unit prior to staff being trained in standardised use of teach-back (i.e. 'pre-intervention'). Following staff training and implementation of teach-back, eligible patients will be allocated to the post-intervention group.
Sponsors
The University of Melbourne
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Group one - patients: Will be discharged directly home following an elective arthroplasty. Cognitively able to receive pre-discharge education on activity, medication, (+/- prevention of dislocation for patients with total hip replacement); are able to provide informed consent; able to communicate in English. Group two - Clinicians (nursing, allied health or medical) within the Williamstown orthopaedic unit who routinely provide pre-discharge information to patients with elective joint surgery (approximately six to ten eligible staff).
Exclusion criteria
Group one - Patients who are not considered to be clinically or otherwise appropriate for inclusion based on their treating clinician’s opinion will be excluded from this study. Group two - clinicians. No exclusion criteria
Outcome results
None listed