a part of cardiopulmonary rehabilitation.

1. PATIENT EDUCATION AND
HEALTH PROMOTION
Afshan Arzoo

2. • Education: Education is an essential
component of health care.
• RT’s needs to educate patients about their
disease and the treatment ordered by
physician.

3. Cultural Diversity and Health Literacy
• Culture refers to patterns of beliefs and
behaviors shared by members of a population.
• Patients use their culture in the way they view
health and the need for health care
interventions.
• Successful respiratory therapy patient
teaching must include patient cultural values
that are appreciated and respected to better
understand the patient’s behaviors.

4. Cultural Diversity
• risk associated with patients
misunderstanding therapy or medications.
• Not related to patients’ ability to read; it is
about patients’ culture and their ability to
comprehend information well enough to
follow the instructions to take a medication,
know when to reorder a medication, and how
to complete a therapy necessary for lung
disease or else.

5. Health literacy
• Health literacy is the degree to which
individuals have the capacity to obtain,
process, and understand basic health
information and services needed to make
appropriate health decisions.
• Health literacy encompasses educational,
social, and cultural factors that influence an
individual.

6. Health literacy
• Respiratory therapists must understand where
the patient is coming from in regards to the
patient’s beliefs, values, and cultural norms to
influence the education provided.
• Low health literacy affects patient safety and
the ability for the patient to participate in
care, and results in poor health outcomes.

7. Health literacy
• To determine whether or not a patient understands, it is
important to look for the following clues.
• Patient repeatedly is noncompliant
• Patient uses the excuse of being too busy, tired, or sick to
maintain attention when given instruction
• Claims that the patient did not feel like reading the information,
gave the information to a family member, or lost or forgot their
glasses
• Insistence on taking the information home to read
• Demonstrates nervousness and stress, confused about the
materials
• Talks about something else and not on topic
• Returns documents that are not complete or illegible