Skip to content
Teach-back Logo Teach-back Logo Teach-back Logo
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • TEACH-BACK NEWS
  • LEARN ABOUT TEACH-BACK
    • Online Module
    • Tips for practice
    • Teach-back presentation
    • Evaluating teach-back
    • Health literacy resources
    • Teach-back videos
    • Organisational use
    • Supporting evidence

Clarify – 10

Home » Clarify – 10
Clarify – 10The Teach-back Team2022-11-24T07:24:22+00:00
Step 3: Clarify

STEP 3 | Clarify

Identify any misunderstandings and re-explain

Actively listen to what the person is ‘teaching-back’ to you. Have they misunderstood anything?
This is a vital step in teach-back. It is often at this point that you realise your assumptions about what someone knows or understands may be incorrect.
Everyone, regardless of education, language or age is at risk of NOT understanding.

Take time over this step, so you are really clear that someone fully understands.

If the person has not explained everything back to you correctly, you will need to provide feedback, focusing on the piece of information that is not understood. For example, you might say…

 – “I don’t think I have been clear enough explaining about……”

 – “What I meant when I talked about……..was that …”

 – “I must not have done a good job explaining the bit about……
Let me try again.”

Tip!

Often we want to give people pamphlets with lots of information. But are they easy to read and understand?
Use this link for more information on how to write easy to understand resources.

How to identify your client’s learning style

Each person will have their own way they like to learn. It can be helpful to have a discussion with a client about their preferred learning style because it highlights the fact that education is occurring and that it is important to you that they understand.

How do you like to learn?

Click the image to download this pdf and tick which boxes apply to you.

Learning Preferences Assessment Tool

There are a range of learning resources you might consider.

Here are some examples

You might draw a picture

Photos

You might draw a picture

Serving sizes

You might draw a picture

Videos

You might draw a picture

Apps

You might draw a picture

Props

You might draw a picture

Using analogies or stories can be effective

You might draw a picture

Adapt any measures into a format people can understand

You might draw a picture

Equipment demonstrations

You might draw a picture

You might draw a picture (but keep them simple – people can struggle with complex diagrams)

You might draw a picture

Write things down or ask if they would like to write things down themselves. This is a great way of making someone feel they have been given information specifically for them.

You might draw a picture

Success stories about how other people have managed to do something might also help

Be as innovative as you need to be!

Info!

The Ophelia Victoria study asked 58 older people with chronic and complex conditions about their preferred learning styles. The most popular way to learn was talking through the information with their healthcare worker, followed by handwritten information about what actions needed to be taken (written by either the client or the healthcare worker). 93% said they preferred to receive information face to face.

Tip!

Be specific. When re-explaining something, focus on what people ‘need to know/need to do’. Be concrete, not abstract. For example, say “let’s talk about what you can eat for lunch that will give you more protein”, rather than “let’s talk about high protein foods”. Ask your client to actually ‘show/tell you’ what they are going to do. Ask them to tell you the actual number of pills that make up a dose, or tell you the actual foods that they will eat.

How people learn

Watch these two videos below

Which video best demonstrates how a healthcare worker can identify someone’s learning style and use this as part of their education?

Video A

Your browser does not support the video tag.
Choose Video A

Video B

Your browser does not support the video tag.
Choose Video B

In Video A the dietitian relied on a closed ‘yes/no’ question to check Sue’s understanding of what a high protein is. She did not check understanding. She also did not identify how Sue liked to learn, but simply offered the written resource and said it was important to read. When Sue questioned the need to read all the information in the handout the dietitian did not identify this as a ‘red flag’ and that this approach may not be appropriate for her.
The correct answer is Video B. In this video the dietitian checks with Sue what resource she would like to use – the written or picture based one. She also checks understanding by asking Sue to give examples of high protein foods and how she could add them to each meal. We have included a useful handout that you can use with your patients to identify how they like to learn.

What to do if the client has explained everything back correctly in their own words

In this case, if you are comfortable that the client fully understands what they need to do, you do not need to re-explain anything. But do remember that even if someone ‘gets it’, this doesn’t necessarily mean they will remember it for next time.  So rechecking next time you see them is a good idea.

One clinician in the Ophelia Victoria project said:

“the beauty of teach-back is, you don’t have to go back through the whole information. You can just say, ‘remember last time we talked about this…can you show me again?’ So you can jump straight back to where you were and get a really good picture of how much the person took on board and understands. So you can then either move forward or rewind a little bit and bring that into your consult and then move forward”.

NEXT SECTION
Teach-back logo

- a simple yet effective educational
tool used to check understanding

Partners

Accreditation

After completing the learning module you will receive a certificate which you can add to your continuing professional development record.

Subscribe to our Teach-back Blog

Sign up here to receive notifications of each new post.
Loading
© 2018 Teachback.org | All Rights Reserved
Page load link
Go to Top