Nurses' patient-education work: conditional factors - an integrative review

The aim of this review was to identify conditional factors for nurses' patient-education work and to identify foundational aspects of significance when designing studies on this patient-education work.

A few reviews of nurses patient education work exist, published up to 30 years ago, spawning interest in performing a review of more recent studies.

A search of CINAHL, MEDLINE and ERIC was made for articles dating from 1998 to 2011. Thirty-two articles were selected and an integrative review was performed.

Conditional factors were identified and beliefs and knowledge, environment, organization, interdisciplinary cooperation, collegial teamwork and patient education activities. A model was developed to describe foundational aspects of significance when designing studies.

The conditional factors are to be seen as either enabling or hindering the accomplishment of evidence-based patient education and the level of person centredness, patient safe care and ethics - something that has to be considered when designing studies.

More detailed studies are required to clarify the nature of patient education work and to create realistic conditions that enable the role to be fulfilled in everyday work. Such knowledge is of significance for nursing management in developing supportive activities for nurses.