Systematic review of effectiveness and quality assessment of patient education materials and decision aids for breathlessness

Anthony Paulo Sunjaya; Lexia Bao; Allison Martin; Gian Luca DiTanna; Christine R Jenkins

doi:10.1186/s12890-022-02032-9

Systematic review of effectiveness and quality assessment of patient education materials and decision aids for breathlessness

BMC Pulm Med. 2022 Jun 20;22(1):237. doi: 10.1186/s12890-022-02032-9.

Authors

Anthony Paulo Sunjaya^{1

2}, Lexia Bao³, Allison Martin^{4

5}, Gian Luca DiTanna^{4

5}, Christine R Jenkins^{6

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ The George Institute for Global Health, 1 King Street Newtown Missenden Road, P. O. Box M201, Sydney, NSW, 2042, Australia. a.sunjaya@unsw.edu.au.
² The University of New South Wales, 18 High Street Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. a.sunjaya@unsw.edu.au.
³ University of British Columbia, Pandosy St, V1Y 1T3, Kelowna, BC, 2312, Canada.
⁴ The George Institute for Global Health, 1 King Street Newtown Missenden Road, P. O. Box M201, Sydney, NSW, 2042, Australia.
⁵ The University of New South Wales, 18 High Street Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
⁶ The George Institute for Global Health, 1 King Street Newtown Missenden Road, P. O. Box M201, Sydney, NSW, 2042, Australia. christine.jenkins@sydney.edu.au.
⁷ The University of New South Wales, 18 High Street Kensington, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. christine.jenkins@sydney.edu.au.
⁸ Concord Clinical School, Concord Repatriation General Hospital, Hospital Road Concord, Sydney, NSW, 2139, Australia. christine.jenkins@sydney.edu.au.

Abstract

Background: Around 10% of adults suffer from clinically significant breathlessness. High quality and actionable patient education materials (PEMs) and patient decision aids (PDAs) have an important role for shared decision making and patient self-management.

Objective: To systematically assess the effectiveness of patient education materials (PEMs) and patient decision aids (PDAs) on clinical outcomes. Secondly, to assess the quality of PEMs and PDAs for breathlessness that are accessible online.

Methods: A systematic review of PEM or PDA intervention for breathlessness published between 1 January 2010 and November 2020 was conducted. An environmental scan and quality assessment of publicly available PEMs and PDAs was also conducted.

Results: Out of 2985 records, five studies were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review. Results of two randomised controlled trials suggest potential effectiveness of PEMs to improve patient reported outcomes and reduce healthcare utilization. In the environmental scan, 88 materials were included. Minimum reading age for most was high (Grade 10) and PEMs scored an average of 87% for understandability and 67% for actionability. Based on the DISCERN tool only 10 were classified as high quality.

Conclusion: There is a paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of PEMs and PDAs for improvement in breathlessness. There is a need to develop higher quality PEMs for breathlessness.

Keywords: Breathlessness; Patient decision aid; Patient education materials; Shared decision making.

Publication types

Systematic Review

MeSH terms

Decision Support Techniques*
Dyspnea / therapy
Humans
Patient Education as Topic*