Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Steps Involved In Preparing Patient Education Materials

By Virginia Miller


There are many options that you can consider when communicating to patients. These range from public lectures, video and audio documentaries and written literature among others. Using patient education handouts appears to be the most effective option and fairly affordable to effect. There are a number of things that you should consider as you prepare these handouts. They include the design, the content, illustrations and the production process.

The content is the heart of the handout and should ideally consume most of your time. It refers to the choice of words and the message that they will relay to the clients. Start by creating a small outline of what you intend to put down. Come up with a few paragraphs with each addressing an important point. There are many different formats of presentation that can be adopted. The question and answer approach is by far the most preferred.

If you have been practicing for some time, it should be fairly easy to come up with the questions that are frequently asked by patients and generate suitable answers to the same. You can team up with your colleagues to help generate more ideas. They will use their experiences to advice on the areas that should receive the greatest emphasis.

Many of the patients that one has to handle in a hospital or clinic form a heterogeneous group. The many and varied needs make it quite difficult to develop a handout that will effectively pass the intended message. To overcome this, one needs to break down the group into smaller units. This segmentation can be done based on factors such as age, the medical condition concerned, gender and so on.

The level of vocabulary used should correspond to the education level of your patients. Keep the sentences simple, concise and objective. Do not go into too much detail as this will most likely make your audience lose interest. For example, instead of addressing hypertension in general, focus on the lifestyle changes that can be made to ensure that blood pressure remains controlled if this is your main agenda.

Illustrations should be included to reduce the monotony of reading text and to add color to your presentation. They are broadly classified into two; informational and filler. Informational illustrations are meant to educate and serve to help explain an idea. Filler illustrations, on the other hand have no real value. They may include for example, a happy mother who has delivered a baby or a senior basking in the sun.

The design is what brings the text, the illustrations and the paper together. It is what determines whether a brochure will be read or will be filed away. The factors to consider as you design the handout include the color, readability and the font. Use color that will have the greatest impact on your audience. In some cases, less is better. Just do your research and understand your audience well.

If you have some money to spare then you may hire an agency to the same for you. There are downsides and benefits of taking this approach. One of the benefits is the fact that it will help you avoid the stress that is associated with the whole process. The main downside is that it may be quite expensive if you plan on producing different titles periodically to meet the changing needs of your clients.




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