Small-group hypertension health education programme: a process and outcome evaluation

The Use of a Game-Based Decision Aid to Educate Pregnant Women about Prenatal Screening: A Randomized Controlled Study

PURPOSE

This project developed and evaluated the efficacy of a game decision aid among pregnant women about prenatal screening in a randomized controlled study.

STUDY DESIGN

Participants were recruited from an obstetric clinic of an academic urban medical center and randomized (n = 73) to one of two study groups: the control group (n = 39) that used a brochure or the intervention group (n = 34) that also used a game decision aid.

RESULT

Participants who played the game had higher knowledge scores (m = 21.41, standard deviation [SD] = 1.74) than participants in the control group (m = 19.59; SD = 3.31), p = 0.004. The median time of game playing was 6:43 minutes (range: 2:17-16:44). The groups were similar in frequency of completing screening after the study, control = 6 (15%) versus intervention = 11 (32%), p = 0.087. However, the more interaction with the game resulted in more positive attitudes toward screening.

CONCLUSION

The addition of a game decision aid was effective in educating pregnant women about prenatal screening. As other genetic testing decisions continue to increase within clinical care, game-based decision tools may be a constructive method of informed decision-making.

Lifestyle advice and lifestyle change: to what degree does lifestyle advice of healthcare professionals reach the population, focusing on gender, age and education?

Health promotion practice in health care has a high priority in the endeavour to achieve equal opportunities for health and diversity in health among the population. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether there is any connection between the lifestyle advice given by healthcare professionals and the lifestyle change of the population, focusing on age, gender and education level. The study is based on the data from a national population survey in Sweden in which 52 595 patients who had attended health care were interviewed by phone. The participants were asked whether healthcare professionals had raised the subject of lifestyle during the visit and whether the advice they gave had contributed to a lifestyle change. The results indicated that lifestyle issues were raised with 32.2% of those who attended health care, particularly among men, younger patients and those with a high education level. When lifestyle issues were raised, the advice contributed to 39.2% of patients making a lifestyle change, to a higher extent among men, older patients and those with a low education level. The study shows that lifestyle advice given by healthcare professionals, during both emergency and outpatient healthcare visits, is an important contributor to patients' lifestyle change.

Student nurses' experiences and challenges in providing health education in Hong Kong

Despite a call for increased emphasis on health education within the Hong Kong acute healthcare setting, in reality nurses conduct only minimal health education and do not model good educational practice for students. At the baccalaureate level, nursing education programmes aim to provide students with practical experience of best practice and international standards of care. This study describes the experiences of nursing students in providing health education to in-patients at an obstetric unit in Hong Kong. A qualitative research study using a phenomenological approach was conducted at a major public hospital. Data were collected using participant observation, debriefing notes, students' reflective journals and semi-structured interviews. Four themes emerged from the data: (a) effective knowledge building, (b) being a professional nurse, (c) refining learned skills, and (d) greater cultural awareness. The student experiences were further influenced by the patients' responses, the expectations of both patients and nurses concerning the health educator's role, and the role of the clinical teacher. Study findings highlight the experience of the students in conducting health education, something which has not been adequately examined previously, and demonstrates the benefits of independent clinical learning.

Expert recommendations on the challenges of hypertension in Asia

A consensus meeting of leading Asian hypertension experts was held in January 2007 in Seoul, Korea, to discuss how to address the growing challenge of hypertension management in the region. This report summarises key recommendations from the group, including: raising public awareness about the impact of hypertension; improving physician education and training; increasing early detection, for example through routine blood pressure measurement; and development and adoption of pan-Asian treatment guidelines, which would greatly facilitate research into hypertension and its management. The group conclude that these challenges can only be met through a collaborative effort of government, healthcare professionals, food and healthcare industries, and patients and the public. Food and healthcare industries need to develop healthy foods and support healthy living programmes, while increasing research into antihypertensive medications in Asia. Government officials and policy makers need to be made aware of the value of investing in hypertension awareness, prevention and management programmes.

Combining individual interviews and focus groups to enhance data richness

AIM

This paper is a presentation of the critical reflection on the types of findings obtained from the combination of individual interviews and focus groups, and how such triangulation contributes to knowledge production and synthesis.

BACKGROUND

Increasingly, qualitative method triangulation is advocated as a strategy to achieve more comprehensive understandings of phenomena. Although ontological and epistemological issues pertaining to triangulation are a topic of debate, more practical discussions are needed on its potential contributions, such as enhanced data richness and depth of inquiry.

METHOD

Data gathered through individual interviews and focus groups from a study on patterns of cancer information-seeking behaviour are used to exemplify the added-value but also the challenges of relying on methods combination.

FINDINGS

The integration of focus group and individual interview data made three main contributions: a productive iterative process whereby an initial model of the phenomenon guided the exploration of individual accounts and successive individual data further enriched the conceptualisation of the phenomenon; identification of the individual and contextual circumstances surrounding the phenomenon, which added to the interpretation of the structure of the phenomenon; and convergence of the central characteristics of the phenomenon across focus groups and individual interviews, which enhanced trustworthiness of findings.

CONCLUSION

Although the use of triangulation is promising, more work is needed to identify the added-value or various outcomes pertaining to method combination and data integration.