Effects of a Patient Directed Web-portal to Improve Health Literacy Skills (PREP)

Access to the best available evidence, and the ability to obtain and understand such information is seen as necessary to protect the public's interests and critical to empowerment, but is also a precondition for participation in the decision making.

A web portal serving as a generic (non disease- specific) tailored tool was developed in the conceptual framework of shared decision making and evidence based practice to improve the lay- public's critical and social literacy skills and activation. A randomized controlled parallel trial using a simple randomization procedure will be conducted, including 200 parents of children <4 with internet access. Parents will be allocated to receive either the portal or no intervention. Primary and secondary outcomes include: the ability to find research based information, critical appraisal skills, perceived behavioural control, attitudes and perceived pressure associated with searching for information, and participation.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Health Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Portal

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 96
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Norway
  • Oslo, Norway, 0130
    • Oslo University College, Faculty of Nursing

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Parents of children age <4 will be recruited with access to internet.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants will be excluded if one other in the household already participates in the study (due to spill-over effect) and if they do not have children <4.
• Since the recruitment will be done online, there is no need to screen for access to internet.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Portal arm	Behavioral: Portal; The portal was tailored to improve the lay public's' "healthy skepticism", or in other words, critical and social literacy skills to assist patients in the decision-making process and for improving access to health information and participation. Illustrated by typical examples which can be found in the news and through patient stories, the portal provides an introduction to research methods, the underlying principles of science and critical assessment tools appropriate for a lay public.; A checklist for critical assessment of health information; Access to research databases for health information and an introduction to research methods and principles of science; A checklist to the consultation
No Intervention: Treatment as usal

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Changes in predictors of search and use of health information	Based on the theory of planned behavioral manual a questionnaire has been developed and validated in order to explore what predictors (efficacy, attitudes and perceived pressure) to search and use of health infomration.	Week 3

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The ability to find reliable answers to a health question	Participants will be asked to formulate a (health) question and to find information that can answer this question. The participants will be asked to copy and paste the internet link to the information they found.The outcome will be evaluated pragmatically by categorizing the information as based on: 1. research or 2. expert advice/ other. The information will be categorized blindly by two independent researchers. The direction of effect is expected to be positive, in that more participants will find research based information than those in the control group.	Week 1
Critical appraisal of health information	Participants will be asked to rate a piece of health information about childhood vaccination using DISCERNs item number 16. DISCERN is an instrument designed to judge the quality of written information about treatment choices. The mean value rating of the information will be measured against a "standard" rating made by experts on the same information. The direction of effect is predicted to be positive, in that the mean overall score of the intervention group will be closer to the standard than the control group.	Week 2
Participation (activation)	The patient activation measure (PAM) has been developed to measure activation. The instrument includes 4 domains; believing the patient role is important, having confidence and knowledge necessary to taking action, actually taking action to improve one's health, and staying the course under stress.	Week 3
Satisfaction with portal	We will also ask participants to comment on satisfaction with the portal after the other data collection has been submitted. This will be done based on the Honeycomb criteria which were also used in the qualitative evaluation. The honeycomb model is a well-renowned and much used instrument to measure user experience	Week 3

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Oslo Metropolitan University
• Collaborators: University of Oslo; Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services
• Investigators: Study Director: Sølvi Helseth, Professor, Oslo University College; Study Director: Arild Bjørndal, Professor, Oslo University; Principal Investigator: Astrid Austvoll-Dahlgren, MA, Oslo University College

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Austvoll-Dahlgren A, Bjorndal A, Odgaard-Jensen J, Helseth S. Evaluation of a web portal for improving public access to evidence-based health information and health literacy skills: a pragmatic trial. PLoS One. 2012;7(5):e37715. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037715. Epub 2012 May 31.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: March 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2011
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2011

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 23, 2010
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 23, 2010
• First Posted (Estimate): December 24, 2010

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): December 3, 2014
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 2, 2014
• Last Verified: December 1, 2010

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Health literacy, participation
• Other Study ID Numbers: REK S-07414b [1.2007.2076]