Improving Access to Patient Education: an Audit of Extant Educational Materials.

Health information exchange between provider and patient, along with patient participation in their care (self-management), can lead to improved health outcomes. A step towards achieving better outcomes is the systematic provision of education materials to patients and caregivers throughout the cancer trajectory. An audit of patient education (PE) materials was conducted at a cancer center to identify content gaps and determine areas for future development. The PE audit was conducted in all outpatient clinics (13) and clinic-specific PE materials were identified, reviewed, and categorized by cancer type and under the following topics: About Cancer/Disease, Medical Tests and Imaging, Treatment, Symptom Management, Rehabilitation/Survivorship, General Wellbeing, Medical Device Care, Practical and Other. Four hundred forty-seven PE materials were included in the audit. Totals for each topic were summed and analyzed for education development opportunities. Results varied based on clinic and cancer type. Majority of the materials were found in the following clinics: Hematology (75), Genitourinary (74), and Gastrointestinal (57). The most common information topics were treatment (277), about cancer/disease (134), and symptom management (120). When broken down by cancer type, it was clear that while the collection of PE materials is well established for some diagnoses (e.g., 28 prostate cancer materials), there is a significant dearth in materials for others (e.g., 0 penile cancer materials). Audit results will be used to identify opportunities for future education material development. Determining cancer-specific information gaps is important in achieving equal information access for patients and caregivers, regardless of cancer diagnosis.

Identifying gaps in consumer health library collections: a retrospective review.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to determine if search request forms, which are used when a patron's request for information cannot be fulfilled at the time of contact with the library team, can be used to identify gaps in consumer health library collections. CASE PRESENTATION: Search request forms were collected from 2013 to 2020 and analyzed independently by two reviewers. Search request forms were included if they were complete and contained a record of how the request was fulfilled. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patron characteristics. Search request forms were iteratively coded to identify themes in the data and determine if resources provided to patrons could be found within the library collection. The study team subsequently reviewed search request forms to determine reasons for identified gaps. Two hundred and forty-nine search request forms were analyzed. Six main content themes were identified: 1) understanding the cancer diagnosis, 2) cancer treatments, 3) understanding disease prognosis, 4) support during and after treatment, 5) natural health products and therapeutic effects in oncology, and 6) research literature. The majority of patrons were patients (53%). Over half (60%) of the submitted search request forms reflected collection gaps, and many (16%) contained queries for information about rare cancer diagnoses. The main reason that queries could not be satisfied was that there was limited consumer health information on the requested topics (53%). CONCLUSIONS: Search request forms are a useful resource for assessing gaps in consumer health library collections.