Persons’ various experiences of learning processes in patient education for osteoarthritis, a qualitative phenomenographic approach

ABSTRACT

Background: Patient education (PE) is a core treatment of osteoarthritis (OA) with the aim to increase persons’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and empowerment. Objective: To describe person’s various experiences of learning processes in PE for OA. Design: Phenomenography. Method: Semi-structured interviews were performed with the same persons, pre- (11) and post- (9) education. Results: Various experiences on learning processes were found and were described in an outcome space. Achieving knowledge describes self-regulated learning and strongly relates to Control, which describes a high order cognitive learning skill, and minor to Confirm, which describes a cognitive learning skill based on recognition and application. Receiving knowledge describes the expectancy of learning regulated from the educator and strongly relates to Comply, which describes a low-order cognitive learning skill, and minor to Confirm. Conclusion: Different experiences of motivation and learning impact on persons’ learning processes which, in turn, influence the persons’ capability to accomplish self-efficacy and empowerment. The outcome space may serve as a basis for discussions between healthcare educators involved in PE to better understand what learning implies and to develop PE further.

KEYWORDS:

• Patient education
• osteoarthritis
• learning processes
• empowerment
• phenomenography

Acknowledgments

The study was funded by Lund University through the LuCare research network.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Lund University through the LUCare research network.