Public Education to Promote Family Communication and Well-being

Using Information and Communication Technology in Public Education Activities to Promote Family Communication and Well-being in Hong Kong

With the increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT), family information can be easily accessed. Family information seeking was found to be associated with higher levels of family well-being. Alongside the growth in popularity of ICTs and its role in promoting family well-being, there is also a growing appreciation that ICTs such as internet-enabled devices and web-based applications can offer many advantages compared to traditional face-to-face approaches when delivering behaviour change programmes.

Given the increasing use of ICT and its potential advantages in public education, ICTs emerge as new strategies of high impact service delivery in different community public education activities, including community events and workshops. Although ICT use is common in daily practice, the application of ICT in implementing public education activities is not common, especially in activities that promote family well-being.

The SMART Family-Link Project is to use ICT in public education activities to promote family communication, sharing happiness with family members, and well-being in the community. The public education activities include community public education events and community public education workshops. The present study aims to assess participants' satisfaction toward the public education activities, the efficiency in activities implementation, and the effectiveness of public education activities. Feedback from participants will be collected by questionnaire survey and interviews. Participants' engagement and response will be observed by observers and video and/or photo-taking.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Family Relations
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: ICT activities

Detailed Description

The last few decades have seen a dramatic rise in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) and Internet access. According to the World Bank, 1.33 per cent of individuals in the world were using the Internet in 1996; in 2006, this figure rose to 17.58 %; by 2016, 45.91 % of individuals were using the Internet. Concurrently, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions across the globe in the last two decades.

In line with the global trend, Hong Kong had 18.25 million mobile service subscribers in 2016. The Hong Kong Family and Health Information Trends Survey (FHinTs) under the FAMILY Project was conducted to monitor opinions and behaviours regarding family health, information use, and health communications. The investigator's results showed that ICT platforms such as online websites, social media, and instant messages are widely used in Hong Kong. In FHinTs 2016 survey, 82.6% of the respondents had smartphones, and 48.8% had tablets. Similar findings from the Nielsen Media Index 2017 year-end report showed that 97% of all internet users in Hong Kong were using smartphones to access the internet. The amount of time spent online each day was 3.2 hours and 94% of people aged 12 to 64 were using the internet.

With the increasing use of ICT, family information can be easily accessed. According to the findings from FHinTs 2016, ICT was increasingly used as a method of family information seeking: 66.7% of respondents sought family information from online websites, compared with 53.6% in 2009. About 30.9% sought family information from social media such as Facebook, and 22.8% sought family information from instant messaging platforms such as WhatApp. Family information such as recreation (46.6%), family heath (22.9%) and elderly-related topics (17.9%) were most commonly sought. Also, family information seeking was associated with higher levels of family health, happiness, harmony, and overall family well-being. The associations were observed regardless of the type of sharing methods, such as face-to-face sharing or sharing via ICT means.

Alongside the growth in popularity of ICTs and its role in promoting family well-being, there is also a growing appreciation that ICTs such as internet-enabled devices and web-based applications can offer many advantages compared to traditional face-to-face approaches when delivering behaviour change programmes. One of the biggest challenges that face-to-face intervention programmes face is diminishing reach and impact due to barriers to accessibility, cost-efficiency, flexibility to adapt to individuals, and structured intervention integrity. Using ICTs can address these barriers and may thus contribute to improving reach. ICT also helps facilitate access to interventions from a large variety of settings at all times, bringing the intervention to participants at times convenient to them and diminishing the influence of the situational constraints on intervention participation rates. The rise of ICT has created promising and potential new avenues and demand for implementing interventions related to mental health and parenting.

Given the increasing use of ICT and its potential advantages in public education, ICTs emerge as new strategies of high impact service delivery in different community public education activities, including community events and workshops.

The goal of the study is to evaluate participants' satisfaction to the activities and the effectiveness of ICT-related activities to enhance family communication, relationship and happiness.

A process evaluation will be performed to evaluate the process of each component of the program. Qualitative and quantitative assessments will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities.

• Study Type: Observational
• Enrollment (Estimated): 200

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Tai-Hing Lam, MD; Phone Number: 39179287; Email: hrmrlth@hku.hk
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Agnes Lai, PhD; Phone Number: 28315289; Email: agneslai@hku.hk

Study Locations

• Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 852
    • Recruiting
    • The University of Hong Kong
    • Contact: Tai-hing Lam, MD; Phone Number: 28315289; Email: hrmrlth@hku.hk
    • Contact: Agnes Lai, PhD; Phone Number: 28315289; Email: agneslai@hku.hk

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 100 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

• Sampling Method: Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Social service users and general public

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Chinese-speaking
• Aged 18 years and above
• Able to complete the questionnaire

Exclusion Criteria:

• Subjects who fail to meet the inclusion criteria

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Satisfaction to the community activities	Outcome-based questions will be used to assess the level of satisfaction toward the general performance of the community activities. The score for each question ranges from 1 to 5. The higher score indicates the higher satisfaction.	Immediately after the activities

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Family communication time	Outcome based question will be used to assess the communication time with family members. The score for each question ranges from 0 to 10. The higher score indicates the better outcome performance.	Baseline and 1 month
Family communication quality	Outcome based questions will be used to assess the quality of communication with family members. The score for each question ranges from 1 to 5. The higher score indicates the better family communication quality.	Baseline and 1 month
Family relationship	Outcome based question will be used to assess the relationship with family members. The score for each question ranges from 0 to 10. The higher score indicates the better family relationship.	Baseline and 1 month.
Family happiness	Outcome based question will be used to assess the family happiness.The score for question ranges from 0 to 10. The higher score indicates the better in family happiness	Baseline and 1 month
Attitude and practice to share happiness with family and friends	Outcome based questions will be used to assess the attitude and practice on sharing happiness with family members and friends. The score for each question ranges from 0 to 10. The higher score indicates the better outcome performance	Baseline, immediately after activities and 1 month

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: The University of Hong Kong
• Collaborators: The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Tai-Hing Lam, MD, The University of Hong Kong

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Sanders MR, Baker S, Turner KM. A randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of Triple P Online with parents of children with early-onset conduct problems. Behav Res Ther. 2012 Nov;50(11):675-84. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2012.07.004. Epub 2012 Aug 18.
• Breitenstein SM, Gross D, Christophersen R. Digital delivery methods of parenting training interventions: a systematic review. Worldviews Evid Based Nurs. 2014 Jun;11(3):168-76. doi: 10.1111/wvn.12040. Epub 2014 May 19. Erratum In: Worldviews Evid Based Nurs. 2015 Aug;12(4):249.
• Zielinski JJ. [Duration of the disease and distribution of some clinical features in a group of epileptic outpatients]. Neurol Neurochir Pol. 1968 May-Jun;2(3):389-93. No abstract available. Polish.
• Sit SM, Lai AY, Kwok TO, Wong HW, Wong YL, Chow E, Kwok YK, Wang MP, Ho SY, Lam TH. Development and evaluation of two brief digital health promotion game booths utilizing augmented reality and motion detection to promote well-being at a gerontechnology summit in Hong Kong. Front Public Health. 2022 Sep 23;10:923271. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.923271. eCollection 2022.

Helpful Links

• The World Bank, 2016. Internet users (per 100 people).

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): March 31, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 2, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 22, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): May 23, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): January 3, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 1, 2024
• Last Verified: December 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Family
• Other Study ID Numbers: UW 19-247

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No