Impact of mobile-based health education on the awareness of glaucoma in Saudi patients: Quasi-experimental study.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the impact of smart mobile phones utilization and applying Bandura's social learning theory in educating and raising awareness to glaucoma treatment compliance in primary chronic glaucoma Saudi patients, as well as examining the social learning process and determining the type of educational material (video, electronic document "brochure") with the highest efficacy in social learning as assessed by the change in Saudi patients' awareness. Finally to assess the variations contributing to chronic glaucoma patients' social learning.

Methods: A total of 150 Saudi patients with primary chronic glaucoma were recruited in our study. They were divided equally into three main groups: Control, electronic document brochure, and animated video. An electronic questionnaire was sent to them through WhatsApp twice, starting with the pretest and then after 1 week of the intervention the posttest questionnaire was sent. Results were collected for both the pretest and the posttest. The study was done at the outpatient clinic at King AbdulAziz University Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Results: Upon comparison of the preintervention score for all groups, we found no significant difference. However, there was an improvement in the postintervention score among all groups in comparison to the preintervention score, with a statistically significant difference for the video group (P < 0.0001). Comparing the postintervention score for all groups, the video group was better than other two groups.

Conclusion: Using mobile-based educational interventions may significantly increase patients' awareness. Both interventional methods were found to be effective in educating patients. However, video-based learning has been significantly more effective. Findings revealed that the most important factor is educational level, which enables better response to health education material.