Evaluation of a cold/flu self-care public education campaign

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to evaluate an Ontario Ministry of Health (MOH) cold/flu self-care public education campaign to reduce unnecessary patient visits to doctors. The MOH campaign consisted of an information booklet delivered to every household in an Ontario city, newspaper ads and radio spots. The program ran during January-March 1994. The evaluation consisted of: (1) 2x2 telephone survey in London (experimental area) and Windsor (comparison area), before and during the campaign; and (2) a telephone survey of London family practitioners during the campaign. In addition, data on the incidence of cold/flu visits to three hospital emergency departments and a sample of family physicians' offices were gathered. The data suggest that program rationale may have been questionable because the majority of the surveyed public were knowledgeable and self-reported appropriate doctor visits for cold/flu. Campaign evaluation showed limited impact. Message penetration was low; only one-third of London residents knew of the campaign or read the booklet. Only two of 10 questions showed increases in knowledge in London and no changes were found for beliefs, attitudes, acquisition of new health practices or self-reported visits to the doctor. The physician survey, emergency room and family physician office visit data were consistent with the public survey findings.

Antibiotic prescribing for childhood febrile illness by primary care doctors in Malaysia

“…Interventional strategies to improve more judicious use of antibiotics need to take into consideration the pressure faced by parents and doctors caring for a febrile child. Passive dissemination of information to parents on a short‐term basis had been shown to be ineffective in reducing cold/flu consultation in Canada 19 . Merely distributing practice guidelines to doctors were found to be ineffective in reducing antibiotic prescribing 20 .…”

“…Passive dissemination of information to parents on a short-term basis had been shown to be ineffective in reducing cold/flu consultation in Canada. 19 Merely distributing practice guidelines to doctors were found to be ineffective in reducing antibiotic prescribing. 20 Gonzales et al targeted both doctors (distribution of guidelines and prescribing profiles) and patients (mailed education package) but did not produce desired result for children with pharyngitis.…”

Warned, but Not Well Armed: Preventing Viral Upper Respiratory Infections in Households

“…For example, vaccination of 25% of 1.5-18-year-old children conferred protection to 8%-18% of adults 35 years in several communities (Piedra et al, 2005). Education Public misconceptions regarding the effectiveness of antibiotics against viral URI have been well documented (Larson et al, 2006;Lee et al, 2003), but public educational campaigns regarding colds and flu have a rather low message penetration (Vingilis et al, 1998) unless they are targeted and relevant to specific groups (Taylor, Kwan-Gett, & McMahon, 2005;White, Kolble, Carlson, & Lipson, 2005). Parental knowledge has been shown to be a more important predictor of seeking care and antibiotics for URI than child care center policies (Friedman, Lee, Kleinman, & Finkelstein, 2003).…”

Evaluation of a Web-based Intervention Providing Tailored Advice for Self-management of Minor Respiratory Symptoms: Exploratory Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Prior to the advent of mass Internet access, patient education about self-management of minor symptoms was attempted by means of booklets and other media with some degree of success [13-16], although effects on consultation rates were typically very modest. A plausible advantage of using the Internet as a means of providing advice about self-management is that it can be tailored to symptoms, and should therefore be, and be perceived as, more personally relevant and hence accurate [17].…”