Toward Literacy-Neutral Spinal Cord Injury Information and Training

Abstract

Minorities are underserved for health services in the United States, and persons from minority backgrounds are disproportionately represented among individuals suffering from low health literacy, a situation that creates a further barrier to understanding health needs and seeking health services. These barriers persist among persons with SCI, with racial and ethnic differences impacting both health outcomes and subjective sense of well-being. Providing health information resources on-line is a well-accepted diffusion strategy in the 21st century, but most health information available on-line is written at a level of complexity that is not useful to or usable by individuals with lower levels of literacy. On-line materials have the potential to resolve some of the difficulties persons with low literacy experience in accessing health information by supplementing text with video demonstrations and audio explanations. YouTube, the popular, open-access, video-sharing social media Web site, provides an opportunity for delivering accessible and literacy-neutral information on topics important to the health of people with SCI. This article explores the use of YouTube in mobilizing knowledge on cardiometabolic disease (eg, cardiovascular disease, obesity, hypertension, diabetes) and pressure ulcer management for the greater SCI community.

YouTube as an On-line Disability Self-Management Tool in Persons With Spinal Cord Injury

“…Findings from Pilot Study 2 on clinician's perceptions of how HtVs might benefit persons with SCI by addressing such specific areas of self-management as "developing a sense of self-efficacy" or "mastering the SCIspecific skills" support a patient-centered paradigm of care; with reduced length of stay in inpatient rehabilitation, mobility and function videos can play an important role to increase independence in individuals with SCI. 12 Further, data from Pilot Study 2 regarding associations between specific features of HtV and self-management for disability concepts are validated by the analysis of the view volume in Pilot Study 3. The most stable Web-driven behavioral patterns were those that can be described as a combination of the video content, such as mastery of SCI-specific skills necessary to effectively function in everyday situations, and a high frequency of viewing volume.…”

“…SCI therapists and consumers with chronic SCI, together with the RRTC team, developed a set of HtVs for the purpose of educating the on-line SCI community, including newly injured individuals, about the skills and techniques necessary to effectively perform a variety of everyday tasks. 12 A series of pilot studies was conducted exploring qualitative and quantitative aspects of SCI-specific educational videos generally available on YouTube, as well as those specifically developed by the RRTC team (HtVs). Studies focused on 3 aspects of the SCI-focused educational videos: (1) content analysis of SCI-specific educational videos posted on YouTube, (2) therapists' evaluation of SCI HtVs, and (3) analysis of viewers' responses to SCI HtVs published on YouTube.…”

The impact of an educational intervention on home support workers' ability to detect early pressure ulcer damage

“…Bryant (2011) states that the theoretical content should be suitable for the intended population, that visual imagery content should be simplistic, and graphs should be avoided. Schladen (2011), in a study focussing on individuals living with a SCI, acknowledged that visual imagery has the potential to counteract this. Schladen et al (2011) The need to transform teaching styles for HSWs across all areas of clinical practice to maintain knowledge retention has been widely acknowledged in the relevant literature (Murray, 2012, Llot et al, 2013, Cavendish, 2013Pesut et al, 2015.…”

“…Schladen (2011), in a study focussing on individuals living with a SCI, acknowledged that visual imagery has the potential to counteract this. Schladen et al (2011) The need to transform teaching styles for HSWs across all areas of clinical practice to maintain knowledge retention has been widely acknowledged in the relevant literature (Murray, 2012, Llot et al, 2013, Cavendish, 2013Pesut et al, 2015. Thomas et al (2014) believe that individuals learn better through a number of approaches, rather than didactic or stand-alone e-learning.…”

A Narrative Literature Review to Direct Spinal Cord Injury Patient Education Programming

“…Of the 14 articles, 7 were based on quantitative studies, 2,4-9 3 were based on qualitative studies, 1,10,11 and 4 were based on mixed-methods studies. [12][13][14][15]…”