Theophylline education: development and evaluation of teaching methods

Abstract

A study was conducted on three adult medicine units in a 300-bed teaching hospital to (1) evaluate the effect of a slide-tape program in increasing patients' short-term knowledge of theophylline treatment and (2) evaluate the effect on this knowledge of a pharmacist's presence during the educational session. Thirty-four patients were assigned randomly to one of two treatment groups. Patients in both groups viewed a 10-minute program, Group 1 patients with the pharmacist present and Group 2 patients alone. Patient knowledge was measured before and after the educational program with identical 20-item objective tests. The posttest scores of both groups were significantly higher than their pretest scores (p less than 0.05). No significant difference was found in the mean improvement in scores between the two groups. Pharmacist-designed audiovisual patient education programs can be used effectively in the pharmacist's absence.