[Patient education programs in Rhône-Alpes region hospitals]

Health education is of growing interest for patients, medicals and health institutions in France. In order to develop this activity in the Rhône-Alpes region (France), a survey of hospital health education programs have been done. A first questionnaire was sent to the medical institutions in the Rhône-Alpes region in order to identify the different projects and their co-ordinators. A second questionnaire was sent to these co-ordinators in order to help them to describe as comprehensively as possible their project. The results were available for public use on a web site. Among the 326 medical institutions contacted, 117 answered from which 217 questionnaires were analysed. The analysis showed the importance attached to this activity, the variety of the institutions that organise it and the diversity of the topics. Management and promotion were less developed in these health education programs.