[Education in the hospital. Differences in satisfaction, cognition and emotional status between younger and older...

The development of patient education in hospital receives increasingly more interest. Given the growing number of older patients, more attention should be paid to this group of patients in hospitals. In a survey among hospital patients the influence of the factor age is studied on the evaluation of the education, knowledge, emotional state and behaviour of the patients. The results show that older hospital patients are more satisfied about the education but have less knowledge about the hospital stay and medical subjects. It seems also that older patients experience less emotional problems and that they are less active in information gathering, while they discuss their emotional problems less frequently and show less self-care. Feelings of powerlessness, dependency and social desirability influence this situation. Several aspects of the development of education for older hospital patients are discussed.