ArticleInternational journal of emergency medicine2018
Patient understanding of discharge instructions in the emergency department: do different patients need different approaches?
Article in International journal of emergency medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effectiveness of Postdischarge Telephone Calls in Reducing Hospital Utilization: Quasi-Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Trial
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- Bridging the Gap Between the ED and Home: The Community Paramedic-Led Transitions Intervention for Persons Living With Dementia.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2026Article
- Patient and Healthcare Provider Priorities for Risk Prediction of Hospital Readmission: A Nominal Group Technique Consensus Study.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Rethinking Postdischarge Intervention Evaluation.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- [Characteristics and clinical outcomes of cancer patients presenting to the emergency department in Korea: a retrospective descriptive study].Journal of Korean biological nursing science · 2026Article
- Safety and efficacy of privacy-preserving models to create Lay summaries of brain MRI reports.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- ED-Explain: Personalized Video Instructions for Patients Discharged from the Emergency Department.Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing · 2026Article
- Development and validation of the Patient-Reported Outcome Measure-Older adult care Transitions from the Emergency Department (PROM-OTED) tool.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026Article
- Enhancing Patient Understanding of Hospitalization and Post-Discharge Needs: The Impact of Physician-Led Verbal Communication and Teach-Back Method.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Evaluation of a large language model to simplify discharge summaries and provide cardiological lifestyle recommendations.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Video discharge instructions increase patient understanding for office-based procedures: a randomized controlled study.Translational andrology and urology · 2025Article
- Evaluating the quality and equity of patient hospital discharge instructions.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Tools to improve discharge equity: Protocol for the pilot TIDE trial.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- Unveiling the gaps: A comprehensive, equity-focused observational examination of Emergency Department discharge.PloS one · 2025Observational
- Improving Patient Understanding of Emergency Department Discharge Instructions.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Evaluating Expert-Layperson Agreement in Identifying Jargon Terms in Electronic Health Record Notes: Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Observational
- ChatGPT's Role in Improving Education Among Patients Seeking Emergency Medical Treatment.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Identifying Facilitators and Inhibitors of Shared Understanding: An Ethnography of Diagnosis Communication in Acute Medical Settings.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrevious studies have demonstrated that patients have poor understanding of the discharge instructions provided from the emergency department (ED). The aims of this study are to determine if patient factors, such as income and level of education, correlate with patient understanding of discharge instructions and to explore if different patient populations prefer different resources for receiving discharge instructions.
methodsWe conducted live observations of physicians providing discharge instructions in the ED to 100 patients followed by a patient survey to determine their understanding in four domains (diagnosis, treatment plan, follow-up instructions, and return to ED (RTED) instructions) and collect patient demographics. We enrolled patients over the age of 18 being discharged home. We excluded non-English- or French-speaking patients and those with significant psychiatric history or cognitive impairment. We performed a two-way ANOVA analysis of patient factors and patient understanding.
resultsWe found that patients had poor understanding of discharge instructions, ranging from 24.0% having poor understanding of their follow-up plan to 64.0% for RTED instructions. Almost half (42%) of patients did not receive complete discharge instructions. Lower income was correlated with a significant decrease in patient understanding of discharge diagnosis (p = 0.01) and RTED instructions (p = 0.04). Patients who did not complete high school trended towards lower levels of understanding of their diagnosis and treatment plan (p = 0.06). Lower income patients had a preference for receiving a follow-up phone call by a nurse, while higher income patients preferred online resources.
conclusionsLower income patients and those who have not completed high school are at a higher risk of poor understanding discharge instructions. As new technological solutions emerge to aid patient understanding of discharge instructions, our study suggests they may not aid those who are at the highest risk of failing to understand their instructions.
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Registered trials
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