Technology use for health education to caregivers: An integrative review of nursing literature

Providing caregivers with health education through educational technologies enhances safe care; and stimulates the decision process and communication among professionals, caregivers and patients. This article is an integrative review to identify what educational technologies have been used for health education to caregivers. The databases Web of Science, Bireme and Scopus were consulted. The inclusion criteria are as follows: full papers, published between 2001 and 2011, in English, Portuguese or Spanish. The descriptors used are the following: educational technology, health education and caregivers. Thirty-four papers were found, 27 of which were excluded because they did not comply with the inclusion criteria, resulting in a final sample of 7 papers. The results evidenced the use of light and hard technologies in health education for caregivers, aimed at the therapeutic discussion of care as well as telehealth service delivery. Research is needed which uses and assesses the use of hard educational technologies in health education for caregivers. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.