Discussion
Education of patients is important to help them cope with health problems, adhere to treatment plans, and focus on recovery. However, the work with adult patients can be challenging in terms of educating and motivating them because of a range of factors (Bastable, Gramet, Jacobs, & Sopczyk, 2011). In this context, it is possible to determine barriers to teaching and obstacles to learning concerning the case of a 45-year-old female patient who is diagnosed with emphysema. In this paper, it is important to explain the difference between barriers and obstacles in patient education, describe these possible barriers and obstacles in detail, and discuss appropriate solutions.
The key difference between barriers and obstacles is that a barrier prevents access to something, and an obstacle prevents the progress of something. In the case of patient education, barriers to teaching are associated with factors that prevent healthcare professionals from delivering education. As a result, practitioners receive limited access to teaching their patients because of certain aspects. Obstacles to learning are related to factors that prevent patients from processing information and receiving knowledge (Bastable et al., 2011). Thus, learners cannot continue their education regarding their health conditions.
Referring to the selected case, it is possible to identify barriers to teaching the female patient and her obstacles to learning. The first barrier is the questionable effectiveness of the education provided for this patient. Knowing the patient’s reaction to adherence to treatment plans, the healthcare professional can pay little attention to motivating her to change her habits (Berman et al., 2014). As a result, the next barrier is the lack of motivation as the healthcare professional understands that this 45-year-old woman will ignore prescriptions.
The patient also has an obstacle associated with her low readiness to learn as she does not want to give up smoking and take medications according to the plan. The other obstacle is the patient’s denial of her learning needs as she does not want to take responsibility for following the physician’s prescriptions (Bastable et al., 2011). From this point, the patient does not accept the fact that she should change her attitude to treatment and learn more about her disease.
To address the first barrier to teaching, the physician should provide the required education even if the patient demonstrates the lack of interest, and he or she should focus on considering patient education as a practitioner’s responsibility. To solve the second barrier, the physician should motivate oneself to provide education as he or she acts for the benefit of the patient. It is also necessary to remove obstacles to learning, and the healthcare professional needs to discuss the importance of learning treatment details with the patient. As a result, the first obstacle will be addressed (Bastable et al., 2011). To cope with the second obstacle, it is necessary to demonstrate what consequences are expected if the patient continues to deny changing her behavior and giving up smoking.
The discussion of barriers to teaching and obstacles to learning about the selected case demonstrates that both practitioners and patients can experience difficulties with providing patient education and being educated. A range of environmental and psychological factors can influence these processes. In this context, the task of a physician is usually to cope with inner motivational or psychological barriers and be able to overcome external factors to contribute to patient positive outcomes.
References
Bastable, S., Gramet, P., Jacobs, K., & Sopczyk, D. L. (2011). Health professional as educator: Principles of teaching and learning. New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Berman, A., Snyder, S. J., Kozier, B., Erb, G. L., Levett-Jones, T., Dwyer, T.,… Parker, B. (2014). Kozier & Erb’s fundamentals of nursing (3rd ed.). Sydney, Australia: Pearson Higher Education.