Evaluation of a videotaped discharge teaching program for liver transplant patients and their families

Abstract

Liver transplantation has become increasingly common for patients with end-stage liver disease in cases where other medical and surgical procedures have failed. In the years up to and including 1994, over 7000 liver transplants were performed in the United States, with over half those occurring in 1994 alone. Liver transplants are expensive, costing approximately $119,000 per transplant. Moreover, the follow-up care that patients and their families must carry out to avoid complications is complex. Although care givers attempt to teach patients what they need to know to manage their transplants, managed care has shortened hospital stays so that staff teaching time is barely adequate. The result is hospital readmissions, unnecessary use of scarce resources and even death. Any tool that can enhance patient learning has the potential to save both scarce resources and lives. The purpose of the exploratory descriptive research reported here was to investigate the efficacy of videotaped instruction as an additional tool for teaching liver transplant recipients and their families about their transplant medications. A seventeen minute videotape was produced by University of Arizona students using resources available from the Computer Center for Instructional Technology, University of Arizona College of Nursing and University Medical Center Transplant Services. Nineteen adult liver transplant patients and/or family members viewed the videotaped instructions. Comparison of their pretest and posttest scores on a 50- item medication knowledge test revealed significantly higher posttest scores. These initial results suggest that developing videotaped instruction can be a cost-effective patient teaching method.