Design of Echinococcosis-Related Materials for Health Communication and the Effects of These Materials in Western Provinces of China

Abstract

Background: Echinococcosis, is a near-cosmopolitan disease and a major contributor to the global parasitic zoonotic burden. Good echinococcosis-related KAP are essential for initiating relevant control measures. Previous publicity materials were mainly paper-based texts, which were unattractive and overly formal. Objective: This study aims to design and produce an easily generalized publicity material and then evaluate its effect in herdsmen. Methods: Pre- and post-surveys were conducted throughout the entire study period in 5 northwest provinces from September 2015 to November 2017, and total of 1211 and 1228 participants involved in the study, respectively. The pre-study aimed to determine the herdsmen's KAP level and provide information for designing publicity material. Then publicity material was designed and produced, and communication via the publicity materials lasted one year. Post-survey was conducted to evaluate the effects of the publicity materials. Rate changes between the pre- and post-surveys were analyzed by the chi-square test. Logistic regression was used to analyze the influence of having watched publicity material on total KAP score. Results: Tibetan was the most common language with a proportion of 63.6%, television was the primary medium for receiving information, so a scenario-based short play was preferred. We designed and produced an informational video based on pre-survey results, presenting a story regarding the attitude change in understanding echinococcosis in three generations of Tibetan people and the use of positive action to treat and prevent echinococcosis with governmental assistance. Through video intervention, the awareness and willingness rates in the knowledge, attitude and practice domains increased by 8.4%, 16.5% and 15.2%, respectively, and all changes were statistically significant by the chi-square test. Participants who had never watched the movie had low KAP scores (P<0.05). Conclusions: Health communication based on a short movie effectively improved herdsmen's knowledge, attitude and willingness of practice towards echinococcosis in a highly endemic setting. The results provide a scientific basis for the potential importance and usefulness of video intervention as an additional control measure. Funding Statement: The research reported is funded by National Key research and development programs（2017YFC1200500). The funding body plays a role in the study design and data collection, analysis, and interpretation of result and in writing the manuscript. Declaration of Interests: All authors report there are no conflicts of interest related to the present article. Ethics Approval Statement: The research protocol was approved by the China Animal Health and Epidemiology Center. All participants signed a written informed consent when they were informed about the purpose and procedures of the study. In case of anyone who doesn’t understand Chinese, investigators from the local veterinary station provided explanation in minority language. All data used in the study was anonymised prior to analysis. There were no animal samples taken as part of our study.