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Patient education is an essential responsibility for all nurses. A patient should

be educated from the moment of admission to the date of discharge. Therefore Nurses

have several roles and responsibilities that they often perform simultaneously

depending on a patient's needs. The first process of being a health educator is patient

assessment. Nurses spend the most time with the patients and provide anticipatory

guidance about immunizations, nutrition, dietary, medications, and safety. They are

the ones who provide hands-on care. Patients need to be educated to make informed

decisions, manage their health, prevent illness, and promote health.

A nurse educator may collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to develop a tailored

individual care plan. Nurses need to discover what is important to their patients and

what motivates them to make the teaching more effective. Nurses should utilize the

teaching back method to demonstrate effective teaching. When developing

educational programs in health promotion, nurses need to focus on a specific target

group that shares the same values and goals. Also, it is important to determine the

literacy level and any other barriers to learning.

Behavioral objectives should be utilized in a patient's care plan when the

patient is willing to learn and change. Before a nurse can utilize the behavioral

objective, they need to determine the patient's readiness to change and create an

objective for the patient’s stage. There are six stages of change. Therefore Nurses play
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a crucial role in patient education and are key players in improving patient health and

wellness.

References
Bastable, S. B. (2021). Nurse as educator: Principles of teaching and learning for nursing

practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Sharma, M. (2021). Theoretical foundations of health education and health promotion. Jones &

Bartlett Learning.

Vallée, A., Blacher, J., Cariou, A., & Sorbets, E. (2020). Blended learning compared to

traditional learning in medical education: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal

of medical Internet research, 22(8), e16504.