Evaluating the impact of an oncology newsletter as an educational tool

Abstract

One of the most important responsibilities facing nurses today is patient education. It is the focal point of the treatment plan that enables patients to better provide self-care and to adapt to lifestyle changes. Patient education efforts need to be evaluated in order to ensure effectiveness and improve the ways in which education is carried out. This article describes an inexpensive and time-efficient evaluation of a cancer education project, a locally-developed oncology newsletter that demonstrated the value of the written word as an aid in the education of cancer patients, and provided the developers with suggestions for the content of future newsletters. Also described are implications for future evaluations of this type.