G. Van Oirschot1, A. Pomphrey1, C. Dunne1, K. Murphy1, K. Blood1, C. Doherty1,2
1University College Dublin, School of Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sports Science, Dublin, Ireland, 2University College Dublin, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, Dublin, Ireland
Background: Multimedia education materials for patients have become especially relevant for producing large-scale education resources for remote/regional healthcare, pandemic healthcare, and under-resourced health services. While an abundance of health research informs the content of these educational materials, less guidance exists for design and delivery. Some research exists in the psychology and pedagogical fields but this has had limited application to healthcare.
Purpose: The aim of this review was to identify all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) within musculoskeletal healthcare that used multimedia education resources as a whole or part of their intervention, and examine how their design and delivery was reported with respect to reproducibility, appraisability, and if any characteristics emerge regarding effectiveness.
Methods: PubMed, CINAHL, PsycInfo and Embase were searched from inception to 10th August 2022 for all RCTs that compared multimedia education in their intervention(s) for adult musculoskeletal patients and compared to any other intervention. The primary outcome was any form of knowledge or retention testing, and secondary outcomes were any other patient reported measures. Educational materials from included studies were appraised by the Cognitive Theory or Multimedia Learning. All methods were carried out in accordance with PRISMA/PERSiST guidelines and included evaluation using Risk of Bias-2 and the TIDieR checklist.
Results: Of 8599 search results, 134 studies were found to use multimedia education materials. Six studies included materials that could be appraised/replicated, while another 25 were obtained by online search, purchase, or direct requests to authors. Thus 103 studies (77%) did not provide sufficient information regarding their educational interventions to allow for appraisal. The primary outcome, knowledge retention, was used in five studies but not in any studies containing retrievable educational materials. For secondary outcomes, pain intensity was the most commonly reported.
Conclusions: With education being a highly touted pillar of treatment in musculoskeletal healthcare and is widely recommended in clinical practice guidelines, it is concerning that 77% of studies did not provide an appraisable or reproducible level of detail for their interventions, even after further efforts were made through online searching or by contacting authors. Researchers must ensure that education is given the same standard of reporting that would be argued for resistance training, load management, pharmacology, or any other aspect of musculoskeletal management. The aim of educational interventions should be better specified and theorised mechanism better explained, as knowledge retention was rarely the outcome of interest in studies using an educational intervention.
Implications: This work advocates for more standardised practice in reporting of patient education, specifically in the area of producing multimedia patient information, as clinicians must be able to implement the interventions and researchers must be able to appraise and replicate them.
The results demonstrate how patient education is poorly reported, with unclear rationale for the outcomes being used and insufficient information surrounding content design and delivery.
In most cases the reader is left unable to view the educational material mentioned in such studies, and Open Science concepts need to be better promoted for research into patient education.
The results demonstrate how patient education is poorly reported, with unclear rationale for the outcomes being used and insufficient information surrounding content design and delivery.
In most cases the reader is left unable to view the educational material mentioned in such studies, and Open Science concepts need to be better promoted for research into patient education.
Funding acknowledgements: Garett Van Oirschot‘s PhD is funded by the UCD Ad Astra program
Keywords:
Patient Education
Multimedia
Musculoskeletal
Patient Education
Multimedia
Musculoskeletal
Topics:
Musculoskeletal
Education
Research methodology, knowledge translation & implementation science
Musculoskeletal
Education
Research methodology, knowledge translation & implementation science
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Reason: This was a systematic review of published data and no ethics approval was required.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
