An Investigation of the Executive Use of Visual Aids in Teaching Illiterate Chemotherapy Clients

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in learning comprehension among those illiterate cancer clients who had extensive use of visual aids implemented into their patient teaching program as compared to their counterparts whose patient teaching, contained little or no use of vis·ual aids. This study was limited to a city hospital tumor clinic and the clients therein. Two groups of five subjects each, w~re selected from the above population. Each subject was a cancer client receiving chemotherapy, each was totAlly or functionally illiterate, each was twenty-five years or older, and each had less than an eighth grade education. The control group was given chemotherapy patient teaching utilizing the chemotherapy booklet used routinely in the tumor- clinic.: This booklet required that the patient have the skills to read a:nd ~omprehend •. The exp·erimental group was taught utilizing a newly: developed l chemotherapy booklet created by Clay. This bookle~ contained pictures as its primary mode of communication. The use of posters·, i pictures, and physical objects were also incorporated into their · teaching program. Data were collected using a p_ret.est-po.sttest instrument developed specifically for this study by Clay.