Lumbar puncture patient video increases knowledge and reduces uncertainty: An RCT

Abstract

Background: Patients often perceive a lumbar puncture (LP) as an invasive procedure. We aimed to evaluate the impact of a 3-minute educational animation-video explaining the LP procedure, on patients’ knowledge, uncertainty, anxiety, and post-LP complications. Methods: We included 203 newly referred memory clinic patients, who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) home viewing of the video, (2) clinic viewing of the video, or (3) control condition (care as usual). Participants completed questionnaires measuring knowledge as information recall, uncertainty, anxiety, and post-LP complications, the latter when patients underwent an LP procedure (n = 145). Results: Viewing the video increased information recall for both home (P