Elisabeth Hollister Sandberg|Ritu Sharma|Warren S. Sandberg
Deficits in Retention for Verbally Presented Medical Information
Suffolk University|Vanderbilt University|Tufts University|Behavioral Health Services|FrontLine Service|Vanderbilt University Medical Center
background anesthesiologists deliver large quantities verbal information patients preoperative teaching basic principles cognitive psychology dictate much information likely forgotten exactly much type information retained recalled remains open question methods institutional review board approval 98 healthy educated volunteers viewed brief video containing preoperative explanation anesthetic options instructions subjects asked engage free cued recall information video complete recognition task developed coding scheme objectively score free cued recall tasks quantity information recalled relative quantity presented video data presented descriptive statistics results subjects spontaneously recalled less 25 information presented providing retrieval cues greatly enhanced recall subjects recalled 67 average material queried cued recall task performance even stronger multiplechoice test 83 items correctly answered indicating information initially encoded category information consistently leastremembered presurgical medication instructions conclusions realistic conditions recall medical instruction given patients recalled even initially encoded given limits shortterm memory clinicians carefully consider patterns information giving improvement memory performance cues retrieval indicates providing printed instructions later review may beneficial