Authors (including presenting author) :
Cheng WC(1), Tang WT(1), Wong KM(1), Chow MC(1), Choi TL(1), Leung MLG(1), Lo BYE(1), Lam YF(1), Chiu PH(1), So KYL(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Medicine, PYNEH
Introduction :
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with adverse long-term health consequences. It is important to enhance patients’ engagement in the life-long therapy by strengthening patient education. However, patient education booklet was found to be an ineffective means as patients have low initiative in reading documents. Physical and nurses still have to explain similar background knowledge to different individual patients during counseling. Patient educational video would potentially be a more attractive and time-saving means to deliver the message.
Objectives :
1) To create an effective and efficient means of patient counseling by broadcasting
educational video.
2) To optimize the quality of the existing sleep in-laboratory service.
Methodology :
An educational video was newly produced by our sleep laboratory staff to replace the formerly used booklet. From 4/1/2021 to 19/3/2021, 100 patients admitted for sleep test were recruited from our F4 sleep laboratory. Likert scale questionnaire was designed on the following item: (1) the causes of OSA (2) the signs and symptoms (3) the long term health consequences (4) the investigations (5) the treatment methods (6) the choice of positive airway pressure machine (7) the level of confidence in understanding OSA well (8) the effectiveness of the content in the video. Patients were invited to complete the same set of questionnaire before and after watching the video in order to assess the change in level of understanding on OSA. Doctors and nurses were invited to report the time they spent on subsequent face-to-face counseling.
Result & Outcome :
The proportion of male (71%) was higher than female (29%) and the age distribution varied from 29 to 90 years old. The pre and post questionnaires showed significant improvement in knowledge after watching the video as the level of “Understand” increased from 42.85% to 91.78%. Even for the age group above 65, the level of “Understanding” raised from 37.91% to 82.96%. Besides, the time engaged in subsequent counseling could be reduced by around 50%.
Conclusions:
Our healthcare system is facing increasing public awareness and diagnosis of OSA. Patients’ thorough understanding towards the disease is the cornerstone of building up their commitment to treatment. The use of educational video is a more effective and efficient way than traditional reading materials to achieve this goal.
