Health promotion psychology: Mass media (study by keating)

Approach: cognitive

Aim: To access the extent to which a mass media campaign (VISION) focusing on reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention resulted in increased awareness and prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Method: Self report (interviewed and responded to a questionnaire).

Sample: stratified, random sample of 3278 participants, aged 15-49 from various ethnic groups in 3 Nigerian states. Approx 60% were married, mean age of 28.

Procedure: Data was collected by trained interviewers who interviews respondents using a questionnaire which was based on one used for a national survey, but which has additional questions on family planning, sexual activity and behaviour, and exposure to various media campaigns. Interviewers obtained verbally informed consent. Respondents were asked whether they has listened to specific radio programmes, watched particular television campaigns, seen any HIV/AIDS or reproductive health adverts in newspapers or received any information from clinics of community health workers about HIV/AIDS or reproductive health workers about the same thing.
Participants responded to the following fixed choice questions (Yes/No)

1. Have you ever talked with a partner about ways to prevent getting the virus that causes aids?
2. Can people reduce their chances of getting the aids veris by using a condom everytime they have sex?
3. Did you use a condom during your last sexual encounter

Statistical tests were conducted to analyse results.

Results: 

• Males were exposed to more media programmes but females were exposed to more clinic-based information.
• 77% listened to the radio and 47% reported watching TV once a week.
• Exposure to the VISION campaign was high. Those who reported high exposure to the VISION campaigns was 1.5 times more likely than those with no exposure to have discussed HIV/AIDS with a partner and over twice as likely to know that condom use can reduce the risk of HIV infection. However, exposure has no effect on condom use during the last occasion of sexual intercourse.

Discussion:

The VISION project was effective in that it reached a high proportion of its intended audience and increased HIV/AIDS awareness and communication. Clinic based session reach females better than males, Different media is important for different people. Different strategies are essential and a focus should be placed on sending information about where condoms can be sourced

Evaluation:

Sample: 

Advantage (A): Large. Use of stratified random sampling whicch improves the representativeness of the sample by reducing the sampling error.

Disadvantage (D) : Ethnocentric-only tells us about the impact of one specific campaign in one specific country

Validity: 

A: Trained interviwers were used, The questions were straight forward and tested the key points under investigation. Questions could only be yes or no- whilst fixed it was clearly yes/no

D: The nature of the topic area may bring up concern of demand characteristics and social desirability bias

Reliability:

A: The closed questions made the self-reports more reliable. Easily repeated.

Type of data:

A: Created quantitative data which was statistically analysed for patterns.

D: There is no qualitative data to explain the patterns found.

Ethics:

A: Obtained verbally informed consent.

D: Sensitive topic

Usefulness/effectiveness:

A: The mass media VISION project was found to be effective as it reached it's audience and increased awareness. Highlighted that different media are crucial to different sections of the population.

The study suggested that future health promotion should integrate information with practical advice about obtaining condoms ( link to removing barriers on the HBM)

D: One more question on the questionnaire asking about the reasons for/against using a condom would have been extremely beneficial to the study as we don't know WHY!

The study found that increased knowledge, understanding and discussion does not necessarily lead to changes in behaviour.