The use of a newspaper insertion to promote DIY testing of vision in India

Background - The mass media have the potential to motivate people to partic ipate in self appraisal of their own health status. An innovative communica tion package was designed to help people to examine vision at home. The imp act of publishing the "do it yourself " (DIY) kit in Indian newspapers was evaluated. Methods - A pretested bilingual vision testing kit was published in three n ewspapers. The kit comprised four tumbling Es corresponding to 6/12 line of Snellen's optotypes. Directions on using the kit were enclosed. 3-7 days a fter publication of the kit, a telephone survey of newspaper readers was un dertaken to evaluate the impact and cost effectiveness. Results - 603 people were contacted over the telephone. 125 (20.73%) subscr ibed to the newspaper carrying the DIY insertion. 43.2% (54) noticed the in sertion of which 88.89% (48) read the enclosed instructions carefully. 58.3 3% respondents felt sufficiently motivated to contact an ophthalmologist. G raduates had a 3.83 times higher probability of reading the communication i nsertion compared with others. Differences in relation to other demographic variables were not statistically significant. Conclusions-Newspapers are an excellent medium for communicating self appra isal kits for vision testing. The medium is cost effective and has signific ant reach in the urban agglomerates of India.