Training health care professionals to enhance their patient teaching skills

Lack of training interferes with health-care professionals' ability to teach effectively. Nursing staff development educators are seeking strategies to overcome teaching-skill deficits. A 30-hour program was designed to improve teaching skills. Evaluation was based on operationally defined teaching skills. Sixty-six course participants' teaching skills improved from the beginning to the end of the course. Further research is needed to determine whether effects persist in practice, whether patients benefit, and whether "training of trainers" is feasible.