HEALTH PROMOTION USING TELEVISION IN HOSPITAL WAITING ROOMS - THE ADELAIDE-CHILDRENS-PARENT-EDUCATION-PROJECT

Objectives: The Adelaide Children's Hospital Parent Education Project was designed to determine the effect of the screening of health promot ion programmes via closed circuit television facilities in hospital wa iting rooms on parents' knowledge of child health issues. Methodology: A knowledge test was constructed with an internal consistency cc-effi cient of 0.95 and used to identify target groups of parents with low k nowledge. The education programmes screened were aimed at the knowledg e deficits. To assess the effects of the programmes an experiment was conducted using a post-test only/control group design, including a tim e delay. Days of the week were assigned randomly to programme days whe n health education programmes were screened and non-programme days whe n normal television programmes were screened. The experimental group w as selected randomly from the attendance registers on programme days a nd the control group from non-programme days. Results: The experimenta l group of parents gained substantial increases in knowledge with some knowledge scores increasing by nearly 70%. Overall there was a statis tically significant difference between the knowledge scores of experim ental and control groups. The recall of programme content by parents w as notable in view of the fact that because of waiting times most only viewed part of the education programmes. Health-promoting behaviour c hanges were also reported. Conclusions: The screening of health progra mmes via hospital waiting room television significantly increases the health knowledge of viewers, although there is a decline over time.