Patient Education: Altruism Behind True Compliance

Abstract

Education may be provided by any healthcare professional who has undertaken appropriate training education, education on patient communication and education is usually included in the healthcare professional’s training. Health education is also a tool used by managed care plans, and may include both general preventive education or health promotion and disease or condition-specific education. Important elements of patient education are skill building and responsibility: patients need to know when, how, and why they need to make a lifestyle change. Group effort is equally important: each member of the patient’s healthcare team needs to be involved. Most societies are in great need of learning more rational and appropriate uses of all types of drugs and of gaining control over the drug products of their own technology. Humans have learned how to extract and synthesize drug products, yet humans have not learned fully how to use these products in an optimal manner. The primary importance of drug education is its benefit to the drug user (patient/consumer); such education can improve the appropriateness of drug taking behaviors to achieve optimal health and well-being. At the center of any educational effort is the provision of drug information, the strategy with which pharmacists and pharmacy students are most familiar. In today’s highly complex and technological world, the availability of current and precise information allows one to understand, make better choices, and prevent or solve problems.

Keywords: American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), Medical and Non-Medical Context of Education, National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE), patient compliance, patient counseling