INTERACTIVE ELECTRONIC TEACHING (ISIS) - HAS THE FUTURE STARTED

Medical education of hypertensives as well as of other asymptomatic ca rdiovascular other risk patients requires individualized, interactive and and attractive strategies. Electronic teaching set up in hospital or clinic settings opens the way of the future, saving time and allowi ng more advantageous use of care-takers. ISIS (Initiation Sanitaire In formatisee et Scenarisee), a French computer assisted program for card iovascular risk patients, combines a scientific information, divided i n 12 sequential but independent modules, with a recreative imaginary t rip in the world of ancient Egypt. To test the impact of this tool on patient health information retention, 158 hypertensives hospitalized i n a day-hospital clinic were randomized into an intervention or ISIS g roup (IG, n = 79) and a control group (CG, n = 79). Both groups receiv ed cardiovascular education through standard means. In addition, IG pa tients underwent a 30 to 60 min session on the computer. Cardiovascula r knowledge was tested by a nurse administering a standardized 28-item questionnaire before and two months after education. Retesting was do ne by telephone interview. A total of 138 completed questionnaires (69 from each group) were analyzed. Overall mean cardiovascular knowledge score before education (14.3 +/- 4.2, range 4-25) improved significan tly after education (3.7 +/- 3.5, p = 0.0001). This improvement was mo re important in the IG than the CG (3.8 +/- 3.6 vs 2.4 +/- 3.2 respect ively, p = 0.02), especially in hypertensives having a known disease f or more than six months. Isis is now available in two languages: Frenc h and English. Patients' satisfaction and the conclusion of this compa rative trial encourage confirmation of these first results in other Fr ench or English speaking populations, in order to test the long term e ffects of structured electronic teaching sessions on health behaviour, and to promote a wide use of computers and multimedia communication i n hypertension control programs.