Nurses as patient-teachers: exploring current expressions of the role

An exploration of nursing literature reveals a broad acceptance of the role of patient-teacher. While patient-teaching has become widely accepted as part of nursing practice, there is little published evidence to support an assertion of its centrality in current nursing practice. Patient-teaching has been variously described, yet there is evidence of polarity in its construction. This polarity is between a health promotion empowerment framework and a mechanistic-interventionist framework. Further, there is little visible consensus about the scope and boundaries of patient-teaching by nurses. Preliminary findings from a pilot study of nurses' perceptions of patient-teaching reveal tensions created within these contradictory frameworks. Nurses find themselves positioned as paternalistic in their approach to patients and simultaneously subservient to other disciplines in determining the focus of patient-teaching.