School of Occupational Therapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Med Educ. 2012 Oct;46(10):992-1000. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2012.04356.x.
Despite movement towards active patient involvement in the education of health professionals, explorations of the experiences of patient-educators beyond descriptive research are limited.
The purpose of this study was to identify the positive and negative factors that contributed to the experiences of patient-educators in a health mentors programme for health professional students at a Canadian university.
Semi-structured focus group discussions and individual interviews were used to elicit the experiences of 30 patient-educators with chronic conditions or disabilities, of the 151 involved in the programme. Thematic analysis was used to identify key themes in the participants' experiences.
Study participants spoke of the potential challenges and benefits of sharing their experiences. The main challenge involved in sharing their experiences was potential vulnerability should students not appreciate what was shared. The main benefits were personal learning and making valued contributions. Two factors influenced the participants' sense of whether the potential benefits outweighed the challenges of personal sharing in the programme: monitoring disclosure, and perceived student learning. Participants used the strategy of monitoring their disclosure to limit how much personal information they shared with students. The benefits of participating in the programme outweighed the potential challenges when students were seen to embrace the intended messages of the patient-educators.
The results of this study provide a conceptual framework that can be used to better prepare patient-educators and students for more reciprocal learning interaction.
尽管人们积极倡导患者参与卫生专业人员的教育，但对患者教育者体验的探索除了描述性研究之外还很有限。
本研究旨在确定在加拿大一所大学的卫生专业学生健康导师计划中，患者教育者体验的积极和消极因素。
采用半结构式焦点小组讨论和个人访谈，从参与该计划的 151 名患者教育者中，收集 30 名患有慢性病或残疾的患者教育者的体验。使用主题分析来确定参与者体验中的关键主题。
研究参与者谈到了分享经验的潜在挑战和益处。分享经验的主要挑战是，如果学生不欣赏所分享的内容，可能会感到脆弱。主要的好处是个人学习和做出有价值的贡献。有两个因素影响了参与者对计划中个人分享的潜在收益是否超过挑战的看法：披露监督和感知的学生学习。参与者使用监测披露的策略来限制与学生分享的个人信息的数量。当学生被认为接受了患者教育者的预期信息时，参与该计划的好处超过了潜在的挑战。
本研究的结果提供了一个概念框架，可以用来更好地为患者教育者和学生做好更具互惠性的学习互动的准备。
