The impact of learning within a self-management patient education programme

Abstract

Background: The current study explores the role of learning within a self-management patient education programme. Emerging research identifies learning as being important to the illness experience. There has also been a growth of research interest on the effectiveness of patient education programmes. However, no research has investigated the learning taking place within these programmes, nor the impact of such learning on the day-to-day experience of illness. Using a sociocultural theoretical lens, the patient education programme and the interactions within it were explored in terms of their role in patients’ learning and the illness experience. Methods: Qualitative data was generated through an ethnography of the patient education programme employing multiple methods: observations, fieldnotes, collection of materials, and one-to-one interviews. Data was analysed using an inductive grounded theory approach. Findings: The learning taking place within the patient education programme contributed to the psychosocial experience of illness in several ways. Three themes emerged from the analysis: negotiating peripherality and marginality within the healthcare community; the importance of access to patient peers; and, patient motivations for action. Applying Wenger’s Communities of Practice theory, themes are discussed in terms of learning, participation in practices, and identity. Discussion: The learning taking place within the patient education programme was transformational for patients’ psychosocial experience of illness. Learning within the patient education programme served to support patients’ participation within the healthcare community, from which patients can learn about the values, practices and language of that community and their place within it, facilitating the development of health-enhancing behaviours.