Stroke in the Young - online medical school held on the Instagram social network: results and prospects

Abstract

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Purpose. To study the potential of Instagram as a hosting platform for an online school in order to improve the programmes of primary prevention of stroke in young people. Material and methods. At the first stage of the study, October 2020, the ‘Stroke in the Young’ online school was announced on 8 medical blogs. For the online school a special account was created under insult.u.molodjh (1,354 followers). As part of the online school are 8 posts and 6 open online lectures. At the second stage, to study the effectiveness of the online school, 50 respondents (4% male, mean age 24.4 ± 5.2 years) were selected from 1,354 students by an electronic random number generator and asked to fill in the questionnaire on ‘Awareness of Risk Factors (RF) and Symptoms of Stroke Among Social Network Users’ before and after the school completion. Results. The total number of people who listened to and read the material of the online school is 8,712 people; the overall engagement is 470 people. 48% of the respondents of the 2nd stage were 18 to 44 years old; 76% of the respondents had post-secondary education. Of the respondents, 16% were employed in the healthcare system and 22% had a history of stroke, 76% had independently searched for information on stroke earlier and 60% received this information passively from healthcare professionals in 2020. The most significant parameters affecting awareness of stroke RF were employment in the healthcare system (alcohol consumption, OR 0.186, CI 0.043–0.804, p = 0.02; high blood pressure (BP), OR 14.945, CI 0.959–233.012, p = 0.05); getting informed about stroke in 2020 (cardiovascular diseases (CVD), OR 3.561, CI 1.093–11.605, p = 0.03; obesity, OR 3.044, CI 1.011–9.163, p = 0.04) and post-secondary education (high BP, OR 6.001, CI 0.920–39.136, p = 0.06; CVD, OR 0.268, CI 1.093–11.605, p = 0.03). Factors that affected the awareness of individual stroke symptoms were getting informed about stroke in 2020 (p = 0.02), education (p = 0.005), history of strokes (p = 0.01) and employment in the healthcare system (p = 0.05). When the questionnaire was completed again after training, it was shown that the online training leads to better chances of improving health literacy with respect to a number of RF (cholesterol awareness (OR 4.6, CI 1.1–18.7), smoking as a risk factor for stroke (OR 3.3, CI 1.3–8.1)) and stroke symptoms (face drooping, OR 5.1, CI 1.0–27.4; very severe headache, OR 3.1, CI 1.0–9.4). Conclusions. Instagram can be used to host online schools in order to improve programmes for primary prevention of stroke in young people. The online school has aroused interest among both healthcare professionals and people without medical education, including those with a history of stroke. Online training led to better chances of improving health literacy with respect to a number of RF, such as awareness of high cholesterol and smoking, and contributed to improving health literacy for such stroke symptoms as face drooping and very severe headache.