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The World Health Organization defines patient education as “any combination of learning experiences designed to help individuals improve their health, by increasing their knowledge or influencing their attitudes.” [1] This combination of learning experiences consists primarily of providing verbal and written material to the patient to improve their motivation to maintain oral health and prevent complications from dental treatment received. Patient education offers an understanding of good oral health, the disease process and instruction about behaviors and hygiene activities to assist the patient. Providing patient education can result in improved long term oral health which can lead to better outcomes with the use of preventive dentistry and dental services. Patients who have a strong understanding of their disease process are much more likely to control their disease and not have repeated setbacks [2].
Oral health information for prevention or maintenance of restorative procedures can be disseminated in a number of formats such as one-to-one instruction, through oral or written instructions such as pamphlets, and the internet and social media, or through various multimedia formats such as self-instructional DVDs that patients can watch at home or in the office.
Motivational interviewing (MI), a technique developed by clinical psychologists Dr. William R. Miller and Dr. Steven Rollnick, is defined as a “directive, client-centred counselling style for eliciting behavior change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence.” Thus it is more focused and goal-directed than simply imparting health information [3].
Social media is a stream primarily available through internet sites and offers platforms upon which information is created and exchanged among people with shared interests. Social media sites enable people from diverse backgrounds to communicate, collaborate and discuss topics. Sites are quite accessible, as participation requires only a computer or handheld device. Beyond that, participation is inexpensive for the user.
Patient education materials for dental office use will likely consist of some combination of the following materials: pamphlets; CDs and or DVDs, and age appropriate books and games. In the United States, the average cost of an educational DVD is approximately $75, with pamphlets or other patient-oriented material costing between $1 and $2. An average U.S. solo practitioner with 2,500 patients would likely spend approximately between 1 percent and 2 percent of gross income on patient education materials annually. This will vary across countries.
Key Further Reading
World Health Organization. “Health Topics” http://www.who.int/topics/health_education/en/ accessed February 2011.
2- The Importance of Patient Education: Knowledge Has Many Different Benefits.
2. Jernigan, K. “The Importance of Patient Education: Knowledge Has Many Different Benefits”, June 5, 2009.