Patient education before discharge from the hospital

Hospitalized patients' perception of their physician's effectiveness as a patient educator was surveyed, using three basic areas of doctor-patient communication: diagnoses, medications, and follow-up plans. The survey instrument, a questionnaire designed and administered by medical students, was designed to ascertain (1) the patients' satisfaction with their hospital stay, (2) satisfaction with their physician as a patient educator, (3) any correlation between (1) and (2), and finally (4) specific data about the amount and kind of information that patients perceived had been transferred from their physician. Satisfaction with their doctor as a patient educator was not a good predictor of satisfaction with the hospital stay. Results are compared with those of a similar survey published in the British medical literature. The effectiveness of the resident physicians as patient educators increased as they were given more information about the exact content of the survey. Their increased effectiveness did not clearly persist during a later follow-up period.