The learning needs and preferred educational tools among breast cancer patients

Introduction & Aim: Breast cancer is the commonest malignancy in females with the highest incidences occurring in worldwide. Patient education for breast cancer patients can be especially important in promoting self-care and quality of life. It is important to successful of patient education should be determined learning needs and preferred education tools. The purpose of this study was identified learning needs and preferred tools of breast cancer patients in hospitals of Urmia University of Medical Sciences.Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in 2016. The study population included 230 breast cancer patients in hospitals of Urmia University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire which was estimated as both reliable and valid. The data were analyzed bySPSS software descriptive statistics and analytical statistics Results: The great majority of breast cancer patients wanted to receive education from the nurses (43%),physicians (31%), psychologists (17%) and other people (9%). The preferred education tools include oral conversation (4.43) handout-pamphlet (4.18), workshop (3.95), educational portal (3.52) and smartphone apps (3.22). The learning needs ranked in order of importance by the patient were treatment options (4.77), side-effects of treatment (4.45), lifestyle changes (4.32), breast cancer information (4.14) and physical activity and sport (3.78). Conclusions: The results suggest that patients need to learn about treatment options, side-effects of treatment, lifestyle changes. Therefore, it seems necessary in order to meet breast cancer patients’ learning needs, health professionals’ education and practice should be improved and also the quality of patient education evaluated