Associations of an Easy-to-Understand Patient Letter on the Health Literacy of Patients after Discharge from Hospital: Results of a Randomized Controlled Intervention Study. / Assoziationen eines leicht verständlichen Patientenbriefs zur Gesundheitskompetenz nachstationärer Patienten. Ergebnisse einer randomisiert kontrollierten Interventionsstudie.

BACKGROUND: 54% of the German population has limited health literacy, which is associated with poorer health outcomes and higher utilization of the healthcare system. AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of this pilot study was to examine the effects of an easy-to-understand patient letter on patients' health literacy after discharge from a Clinic for Internal Medicine and to analyze patients' need for written, easy-to-understand information. METHOD: In a randomized controlled trial (2016-2018), the effects of the patient letter on health literacy were examined by means of the HLS-EU-Q47 questionnaire. The intervention group (IG, n=242) received an easy-to-understand patient letter 3 days after discharge, the control group (KG, n=175) received only the usual medical discharge letter. RESULTS: 60% of post-discharge patients were found to have limited health literacy. The study could not show any effect of patient letters on overall health literacy. The analysis of single items of health literacy showed positive effects of these letters on patients' comprehension of medical advice as well as their understanding and implementation of medication instructions (Cohens d≥0.20). Furthermore, patients expressed their wish for information after discharge from hospital (99%) and rated the patient letter as informative, understandable and helpful. CONCLUSIONS: Patients wish to receive and are empowered by an easy-to-understand letter after discharge from hospital with medical information and medical instructions that they can implement at home.

A mixed-methods evaluation of interprofessional education in palliative care: changes in student attitudes towards health professions.

Background: Future health care increasingly requires interprofessional thinking and decision-making which should be taught during medical study and vocational training. Against this backdrop, the Medical Faculty at TU Dresden developed an elective course on "Interprofessional Palliative Medicine" in which medical students and trainees in different health professions have been taught together since the 2017 summer semester. An extensive and simultaneous course evaluation conducted in the 2019 summer semester and 2019/20 winter semester investigated if and how strongly attendees' perceptions of interprofessional collaboration had changed as a result of the elective course. Method: The course evaluations included quantitative pre- and post-questions on a questionnaire (n=50) covering, among other things, the perception of roles, according to the Role Perception Questionnaire, and qualitative interviews (n=20). The pre- and post-questions were compared using the Wilcoxon test for related samples and the effect sizes were calculated according to Cohen. The qualitative interviews were analyzed for content using a combined deductive-inductive approach. Results: It was seen that the perceptions and attitudes of each professional group were mutually influenced as a result of the elective course. The quantitative analysis showed the largest effects regarding gains in understanding the roles and competencies of one's own and the other professions (d=0.975) and a reciprocal feeling of "being dependent on each other" (d=0.845). In the interviews, it was seen that medical students developed a greater appreciation for the subject matter and tasks associated with nursing. A strengthening of self-perception was primarily found in the trainees. Conclusion: The elective course on "Interprofessional Palliative Medicine" contributed to the changes in attitude not only with an increased self-awareness of one's own professional group, but also a greater understanding of the roles and expertise of the other health professions. The results speak for the benefit of expanding the interprofessional courses offered.

The subjective experience of collaboration in interprofessional tutor teams: A qualitative study.

AIM: The Center for Interprofessional Training in Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus at the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, has offered courses covering interprofessional material since the winter semester 2014/15. The unusual feature of these courses is that they are co-taught by peer tutors from medicine and nursing. This study investigates the subjective experiences of these tutors during the collaborative preparation and teaching of these tutorials with the aim of identifying the effects of equal participation in the perceptions and assessments of the other professional group. METHOD: Semi-structured, guideline-based interviews were held with six randomly selected tutors. The interviews were analyzed using structuring content analysis. RESULTS: The results show that collaborative work led to reflection, mostly by the university student tutors, on the attitudes held. However, the co-tutors from each professional group were perceived to different degrees as being representative of those in their profession. Asked to master a shared assignment in a non-clinical context, the members of the different professional groups met on equal footing, even if the medical students had already gathered more teaching experience and thus mostly assumed a mentoring role over the course of working on and realizing the teaching units. The nursing tutors were primarily focused on their role as tutor. Both professional groups emphasized that prior to the collaboration they had an insufficient or no idea about the theoretical knowledge or practical skills of the other professional group. Overall, the project was rated as beneficial, and interprofessional education was endorsed. CONCLUSION: In the discussion, recommendations based on the insights are made for joint tutor training of both professional groups. According to these recommendations, harmonizing the teaching abilities of all tutors is essential to ensure equality during cooperation. Ideally, training programs should be attended together by medical and nursing students to emphasize their shared identity as "tutor".