Original research

Utilizing video on myocardial infarction as a health educational intervention in patient waiting areas of the developing world: A study at the emergency department of a major tertiary care hospital in India

Naveen Dhawan¹ , Omar Saeed² , Vineet Gupta³ , Rishi Desai^4,5 , Melvin Ku⁶ , Sanjeev Bhoi³ and Sanjay Verma³

¹  Department of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

²  Department of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

³  Department of Emergency Medicine (JPNATC), All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India

⁴  Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

⁵  UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA, USA

⁶  Department of Medicine, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

author email corresponding author email

International Archives of Medicine 2008, 1:14doi:10.1186/1755-7682-1-14

Published:	29 July 2008

Abstract

Objective

To study the effect of health educational video instruction on increasing patients' knowledge in a hospital waiting area of a developing country.

Methods

An educational video on signs, symptoms, and risk factors of myocardial infarction (MI) was played in an Emergency Department (ED) patient waiting area of an urban tertiary care hospital in India. Participants (n = 217) were randomly assigned to two groups: an intervention group that viewed the MI video (n = 111) and a control group that did not view the video (n = 106). Each group took a standard survey of thirty-seven questions to assess baseline knowledge pertaining to MI (pretest). The intervention group then viewed the video and the initial survey was re-administered to each group (posttest).

Results

At baseline (pretest) there was no statistically significant difference between the intervention and control group in the mean number of correct (18.1 vs. 19.0, p = 0.19), incorrect (9.4 vs. 8.6, p = 0.27) and unsure (9.6 vs. 9.3, p = 0.78) responses per participant. After viewing the video on MI, the intervention group had a statistically significant improvement in the mean number of correct responses (27.0 vs. 20.0, p < 0.001), and a significant decline in the mean number of unsure responses (1.8 vs. 9.4, p < 0.001) compared to the posttest responses of the control group. There was no significant change in the number of incorrect responses on the posttest between the intervention and control groups, (8.3 vs. 7.7, p = 0.35), respectively.

Conclusion

A health educational video can serve as an effective tool for increasing patients' short-term knowledge and awareness of health conditions in a hospital waiting area of a developing country.

Practice Implications

Health educational videos serve as a public health low cost intervention that demonstrates clear short term benefits. Health care workers in developing countries can help educate individuals presenting to hospitals by displaying these videos in hospital waiting areas.