Maximizing your Patient Education Skills (MPES): a multi-site evaluation of an innovative patient education skills training course for oncology health care professionals

Objective: To evaluate the acceptability and relevance of the Maximizing your Patient Education Skills (MPES) course and to determine whether it significantly improved knowledge regarding patient education (PE) theory, self-assessed PE competencies, and PE skills using case based vignettes.

Methods: 1-Group, multi-site, pre-post-intervention. Participants completed a pre-assessment (T1), participated in the 4-h MPES course, and then a 3-month post-assessment (T2). A focus group was conducted with sub-set of participants.

Results: 98 (75%) of participants completed both time points. Participants were highly satisfied with MPES and found it to be relevant. Results showed that MPES had a significant impact on all of our outcome measures.

Conclusion: Findings from this study show that oncology HCPs knowledge of patient education theory, self-assessed competencies and skills can improve after participating in a brief problem-focused and interactive workshop.

Practice implications: Given the evidence that well-planned education and support can contribute to a number of positive health outcomes and the evidence that HCPs may lack the skills to teach and support patients and their families effectively, these results suggest that MPES course may be of value to oncology professionals. Efforts to further develop this course include exploring alternative funding models and using different learning platforms.