The document discusses barriers to effective health education for patients. It identifies several key barriers: health literacy issues where patients may not understand medical terminology or health information; language and cultural barriers where patients' primary language or cultural beliefs may differ from healthcare providers; and physical and environmental barriers like low vision, hearing loss, or an uncomfortable clinical setting. The document emphasizes the nurse's important role in assessing individual patient needs and barriers, providing education in multiple formats, ensuring patients comprehend instructions, and advocating for vulnerable patients. Awareness of potential barriers can help nurses determine the best tools and strategies to effectively deliver individualized patient education.

1. BARRIERS IN
HEALTH
EDUCATION
By:
ROMMEL LUIS C.
ISRAEL III

3. WHY HEALTH TEACHING IS IMPORTANT?
Patient education is a dynamic and continuous process that should be carried
out over the entire time from the patient admission to discharge from hospital.
Patient education improves the knowledge, skills, and motivation of patients
about maintaining and improving their health.

5. WHY PATIENT EDUCATION?
WHYHEALTH TEACHING IS IMPORTANT?
Patient education is
known to improve
patient satisfaction
and quality of life.
It reduces the
incidence of
complications, cost
of treatment, and
rate of readmission .
It reinforces healthy
behaviors and
reduce unhealthy
behaviors.
It reduces patient
anxiety.
It decreases the
effect of symptoms.
It shortens the
hospital stay time.
It increases the
participation in
health care
programs, and
It improves the
patient autonomy in
daily activities

6. WHY DO WE NEED TO
UNDERSTAND THE
BARRIERS TO
HEALTH
TEACHING?

7. Patients and their families are given a multitude of
information about their health and commonly must make
important decisions from these facts.
It is up to the nurse to assess and evaluate the patient's
learning needs and readiness to learn because everyone
learns differently.

8. With increasingly diverse and aging populations, health literacy challenges
are expanding. Nurses, physicians, and healthcare team members must
address these challenges to reduce the risk of harm from medication
errors, inadequate patient education, failure to follow discharge plans,
costly hospital readmissions, and overall poor health outcomes.
Evidence-based, culturally competent skills can provide positive patient-
and family-centered approaches to reduce health disparities.
Patient and family healthcare beliefs and practices may vary from their
own. Nurses' personal values and traditions should be examined to identify
cultural differences in providing patient care.
Racial and ethnic differences and low socioeconomic status can contribute
to health disparities. Vulnerable populations must be recognized and
supported to reduce health inequities seen in all patient-care areas.

9. BARRIER:
HEALTH CARE
LITERACY

10. • Healthcare literacy is the
capacity to obtain,
process, and understand
basic health information
and services needed to
make appropriate health
decisions.
• Healthcare decisions can
be hindered with health
literacy gaps in
communication between
patients, families, and
healthcare team members.

11. HEALTH LITERACY IS IMPORTANT
FOR EVERYONE
WE ALL NEED TO BE ABLE TO FIND,
UNDERSTAND, AND USE HEALTH
INFORMATION AND SERVICES.

12. WHY DO WE HAVE A
HEALTH LITERACY
PROBLEM?
• When organizations or people create
and give others health information
that is too difficult for them to
understand, we create a health
literacy problem.
• When we expect them to figure out
health services with many unfamiliar,
confusing or even conflicting steps,
we also create a health literacy
problem.

13. They aren’t familiar with medical terms or how their
bodies work.
They have to interpret statistics and evaluate risks and
benefits that affect their health and safety.
They are diagnosed with a serious illness and are
scared and confused.
They have health conditions that require complicated
self-care.
They are voting on an issue affecting the community’s
health and relying on unfamiliar technical information.

14. BARRIER:
LANGUAGE AND
CULTURE BARRIER

15. For these patients, culture and language set the
context for the acquisition and application of
health literacy skills
Nurses today are providing care, education, and
case management to an increasingly diverse
patient population that is challenged with a triad
of cultural, linguistic, and health literacy barriers.

16. • Nurses are in an
ideal position to
facilitate the
interconnections
between patient
culture, language,
and health literacy
in order to improve
health outcomes for
culturally diverse
patients.

17. • Language
barriers
complicated
nursing care
delivery while
increasing
stress and
workload.

19. BARRIER:
PHYSICAL AND
ENVIRONMENTAL

20. • As a person ages, visual
clarity and auditory acuity
will decrease, making it
difficult for the person to
receive information. Many
times, a patient may refuse
to wear corrective devices.
Altered mental capacity
because of pathologic
disease processes, such as
Alzheimer disease, or
pharmacologic
interventions, such as
medications, can create a
barrier for effective teaching.

21. The physical space, such as noise, lighting, and
comfort.
Psychosocial and interaction factors, such as trust,
rapport, and motivation.
The organizational culture, such as policies,
procedures, and resources.
Teaching and learning components, such as methods,
materials, and feedback.
Literacy, culture, language, and physiological barriers,
such as cognitive, sensory, or emotional impairments.

22. NURSING CONSIDERATIONS

23. A critical role of the nurse is
to be the patient's advocate.
Attending to patient needs,
interests, and values should
be the priority of care in
disease and illness
management.

25. • Nurses have a moral
obligation to uphold and
protect patient rights.
• Improved health literacy
skills can help patients
and family members
locate community
resources and services
and make informed
decisions about their
own healthcare.

26. • Nurses should use various
types of communication
and tools with patients; for
example, incorporating
pictures, simulations, and
performance scorecards to
measure achievement and
analyze written and verbal
communication.

27. • The nurse should use evidence-
based methods of verifying
patient understanding to ensure
that patients understand
information about their
medications, treatments,
procedures, tests, and medical
devices.
• Nurses should confirm that
pharmacists provide the required
counseling in language patients
can comprehend for dispensed
medications as required by law.

28. • The nurse
should use
patient-centered
technologies
such as social
media to
improve patient
access to
healthcare.

29. • The nurse should
consider the use of
interpreters when
needed.
• The interpreter is
intended to translate
for the patient in the
discussion, not take
the place of the
patient.
• Education should
include the process of
notifying and
collaborating with
interpreter services.

30. • Challenges to providing
culturally competent care
included diversity in
patient populations, lack
of resources to provide
culturally competent care
and biases/prejudices.
• Strategies to address
these challenges in the
areas of nursing
education, nursing
research and nursing
policy should be applied.

31. • Nurses should continually develop
their ability to practice cultural self-
awareness so as to better recognize
their own cultural and linguistic
assumptions and biases (Purnell &
Paulanka, 2008; Racher & Annis, 2007).
• Nurses can work with other healthcare
providers to develop patient
assessment tools, as well as strategies
that use these tools, to strengthen the
healthcare provided. Broad-based
patient assessments will enable nurses
to explicitly incorporate health literacy
into transcultural nursing practice.

32. • Important components of physical activity promotion to increase physical activity in
older patients during hospitalization include emphasizing the importance of
physical activity and maintaining physical independency and strength by health
care professionals as well as lowering physical barriers, like weakness or having
pain, drains or lines.
• Encouragement by health care professionals and carers should not only focus on
physically dependent patients but also on physically independent patients.

33. For effective delivery of health information and education, the
nurse must be aware of the barriers that can impede the patient’s
ability and readiness to learn.
Awareness of the potential barriers of literacy, culture, language,
and physiological factors will help the nurse determine what tools
he or she may need to assist in the delivery of information.
Awareness of one’s biases and prejudices and overcoming them
will assist in the education process.

34. REFERENCES:
• Beagley, L. (2011). Educating Patients: Understanding Barriers, Learning Styles, and Teaching
Techniques. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 26(5), 331–337.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jopan.2011.06.002
• Beagley, L. (2011). Educating Patients: Understanding Barriers, Learning Styles, and Teaching
Techniques. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing, 26(5), 331–337.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jopan.2011.06.002
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Understanding Health Literacy . Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/learn/Understanding.html
• Abbasi, M., Rabiei, L. and Masoudi, R. (2018). Experience of nursing students about the barriers to
patient education: a qualitative study in Iran. Korean Journal of Medical Education, 30(4), pp.327–337.
doi:https://doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2018.107.
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disparate populations. Nursing, 48(12), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.nurse.0000547717.61986.25

35. REFERENCES:
• Singleton, K. and Krause, E.M.S. (2010). Understanding cultural and linguistic barriers to health
literacy. Kentucky Nurse, [online] 58(4), pp.4, 6–9. Available at:
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36. REFERENCES:
• Scheerman, K., Schoenmakers, A.H.C., Meskers, C.G.M. and Maier, A.B. (2021). Physical, motivational and environmental
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