The efficacy of personalized audiovisual patient-education materials

Abstract

Patient education is considered an important component of primary care medicine. The traditional methods of patient education have been physician-patient dialogue and printed handouts. This study compares the relative efficacy of pamphlets, one-to-one dialogue, and audiovisual presentations. The results indicate that the slide and sound presentation was most effective in conveying patient information.

PIP: 2 primary care sites, a clinic and a private physician's office, were the sites of a study designed to compare the relative efficacy of pamphlets, 1-to-1 dialogue, and audiovisual presentations used in patient education. Respondents were female patients who presented at either site requesting contraception. The final sample of 100 patients consisted of 70 from the clinic setting and 30 from the private setting. The sample was predominantly white (63%), of low income (54% had family incomes of less than $8000), and Protestant (85%). The mean age of the subjects was 21.5 years. All 100 patients received a presentation of the same information on contraceptive methods extracted from a pamphlet distributed by a leading manufacturer of contraceptives. Before data collection, the 100 participants were randomly divided into 5 groups of 20 patients with each group receiving the educational material in 1 of 5 ways. The group that received a combination of presentations evidenced the most knowledgeable gain. Subjects who received the oral presentation alone showed the least gain. Although the combination group made the most improvement, this change was not significantly different from the increases made by the patients receiving information through the slide and sound presentations alone. The changes made by all 3 audiovisual groups were significantly better than the pamphlet or the oral group. The difference in improvement scores across various demographic groups was not statistically significant. Patients who received the combination of presentations were most satisfied with the information, while those receiving the pamphlet were least satisfied. Patients receiving the information through the combination of presentations felt that they learned the most. The amount of time physicians spent discussing contraceptives varied across groups. In particular, the time spent when the physicians were told to provide oral instructions (oral and combination groups) was significantly different from the amount of time spent when the physicians presented the contraceptive information in another manner.