[Study of the health education process in liver transplant recipients]

We present the results of a study carried out in Bellvitge University Hospital in Barcelona (Spain) in patients who underwent orthotopic liver transplantation and who are the subject of a health education program. Throughout the years, the structure of this program has undergone several changes. Initially, only verbal information supplied by a nurse on the knowledge required for patient self-care was envisaged. Through continuous evaluation, different forms of written and audiovisual information on patient self-care were introduced. The aim of this study was to evaluate patient knowledge on self-care by comparing compliance with recommendations at discharge among the patients who received verbal information only with that among patients who received verbal as well as written and/or audiovisual information. The study population comprised 434 patients who underwent liver transplantation from February 1984 to December 31, 1998. A retrospective cohort study was designed with two groups of patients. The first group was composed by 117 patients who received verbal, written and audiovisual information. The second group comprised 107 patients who received verbal information only. Data collection was through a telephone survey. Telephone interview was possible with only 98 patients in the first group and 60 in the second.In the overall evaluation of health education level, the score obtained by the first group was 8.3 (SD = 2.2) and that obtained by the second group was 6.8 (SD = 1.8). The possible score was between 0 and 11. The differences between groups were statistically significant (p < 0.001). In general, patients who received verbal information only showed lower compliance with recommendations at discharge than those also received written and/or audiovisual information.