It cannot be denied that the process of managing chronic diseases in people of advanced age can be connected with a range of difficulties. Speaking about the latter, it is necessary to understand that the lack of patient education may have a negative influence on the representatives of this vulnerable group. Therefore, it is important to study the connection between proper education and elderly patients’ chances to improve their health conditions. Thus, it is necessary to formulate a specific clinical question that would allow us to thoroughly study the topic. In this particular case, I am planning to use the following question: Does patient education intervention help to improve the health condition of elderly patients with chronic diseases?
After formulating the clinical question that needs to be answered at the end of the research, it is necessary to define the type of the study that will help to explore the topic more thoroughly. Considering the type of question determined, I suppose that it will be necessary to conduct a quasi-experimental study. There is a range of differences and similarities between this type of study and an experimental one; both of them allow the researcher to observe the phenomenon and make a conclusion about it. Observations are especially important for the research related to healthcare as health issues are to be studied in detail.
Speaking about the differences between these types of study, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that they involve different approaches to choosing the participants and dividing them into groups. Thus, the only experimental study involves random sampling. As for the discussed research, it will be necessary to compare health conditions of two groups of people (receiving only medical treatment and receiving both medical treatment and education), and I suppose that it will be more appropriate to assign the participants intentionally in order to ensure that people with the most common chronic diseases are represented in both groups. To me, it seems that such a type of study will be more appropriate for the discussed research because it will help to create the same conditions for two groups that are to be compared.
Besides other things, it is necessary to choose a theoretical framework that will allow us to investigate the problem paying attention to the findings reported by previous researchers in the field. As for the discussed research, it is essential to study the approaches to elderly patients’ education that appear to be the most effective in order to use them during the work with one group of participants. Thus, according to Tannenbaum, Martin, Tamblyn, Benedetti, and Ahmed (2014), direct education involving the use of printed materials and lectures remains an effective approach allowing to encourage elderly patients to make decisions that are beneficial for their health conditions.
I suppose that it would be necessary to follow the same model during providing the patients with essential knowledge because this approach has been proved to be effective. As for other works by previous researches in the field that can be used to plan the discussed experiment, it may also be important to use special education films that help to explain the most important rules of conduct for people suffering from various diseases (Hsueh, Wang, Sun, Tseng, & Yang, 2014). I suppose that these approaches mentioned by previous researchers (the use of short films, printed materials, and lectures) can be used in future studies because they will help to define whether these measures work when applied to elderly people with chronic diseases.
References
Hsueh, F. C., Wang, H. C., Sun, C. A., Tseng, C. C., & Yang, T. (2014). The effect of different patient education methods on quality of bowel cleanliness in outpatients receiving colonoscopy examination. Applied Nursing Research, 27(2), 1-5.
Tannenbaum, C., Martin, P., Tamblyn, R., Benedetti, A., & Ahmed, S. (2014). Reduction of inappropriate benzodiazepine prescriptions among older adults through direct patient education: The EMPOWER cluster randomized trial. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(6), 890-898.