› Assess patient for
• readiness to learn
–Patients may be at different stages of readiness; it is important to individualize your approach based on each individual
learner’s readiness
• preferred learning style
–Individuals are auditory, visual, or tactile learners, and learn by hearing, by seeing, and by doing
–To quickly identify one’s preferred learning style, have the learner think back to the last time he or she learned something,
and ask, “How did you go about it?”
• patient-identified learning priorities
–When there is incongruence between the patient’s priorities and the health care provider’s goals, explore why the
incongruence exists