Search

Cancer patients, in particular, have a need to communicate with care-givers on their own terms. To meet this demand, we created an individual “patient's book” based on; (A) objective, written information dealing with diagnostic procedures, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery and discharge. We followed the quality assurance process, dividing the information problems into structure, process and outcome. (B) an artistic lay-out to meet the patient's feelings of distress. To add a psychological dimension to the book, an authoress, a nature photographer and a painter were engaged. Patients in the ward evaluated A in 1993/94. This time patients evaluated both A and B one week after discharge, by filling in an anonymous questionnaire with four-level scales or yes/no questions. Preliminary results show that patients now are more aware of side-effects of their treatment. Other results may indicate that patients receive written information alone, not in combination with oral, as clearly was the intention. Furthermore, the evaluation reveals that the patients are very happy with our “patient's book”.