Our experience in education of patients within the first session "Human body and cancer" of European education program "Learning to live with cancer"

Background: As a part of educational team within the European Educational Program (EEP), senior nurse should give clear and understandable information to the patients about the functioning of the human body, tissues and cells and increase their knowledge about the cancer. Senior nurse also has to get them acquainted with the medical terminology. The aim of this research was to assess how participants was satisfied with the information they had been given either orally, or in written form within the first session of the EEP. Methodology: Thirty-seven patients and their family members were entered in this research. They were divided in two groups, which were investigated separately, on December 2002, and on May 2003 at the Department for Educational Activities. For the purpose of this investigation an anonymous questionnaire and the original evaluation list from the EEP as an assessment instrument, were used. Results: Seventy percent of the participants assessed the first session as very good, while the remaining 30% scored the session as excellent. All participants understand information they had been given and 97% of them claimed they had learned something they had not used to know. As far as printed material was concerned, 73% of the participants evaluated this material as being very good, and 24% of all included persons as being excellent. Conclusion: Our results confirmed that the first session "Human body and cancer" of EEP Learning to live with cancer meet the patients' and their family members' expectation concerning getting clear information on this subject