Assessing the impact of educational TV program intervention on transforming elderly patients, promote patient involvement, and mitigating violence toward physicians: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Objective: Violence against physicians is a growing problem. However, previous interventions have primarily focused on the doctors’ perspective and changes to the healthcare environment, ignoring the critical role of patient involvement, especially among elderly patients. This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational TV program intervention developed in this study for elderly patients in improving their willingness to participate in medical decision-making, enhancing their patient experience and literacy, and reducing aggression toward physicians. Method: A randomized controlled trial was conducted to evaluate the effect of the educational TV program. We recruited 394 elderly participants with the experience of visiting a doctor in the past three months and randomly divided the patients into an intervention group (n = 197) and a control group (n = 197). The intervention group watched the educational TV program that we produced. The control group watched an educational TV program of equal duration with neutral content unrelated to the doctor-patient relationship (DPR). We measured participants’ willingness to participate in medical decision-making, patient experience, aggression against doctors and patient literacy at three time points: baseline (pre-test), mid-line (post-test), and end-line (follow-up after one month). Results: Compared to the control group, participants in the intervention group exhibited significant improvements in willingness to engage in medical decision-making, patient experience, and patient literacy. Furthermore, compared to baseline values, there was a significant reduction in aggression towards doctors among the intervention group, both at the mid-line and end-line assessments. Conclusion: The educational TV program could effectively improve willingness to participate in medical decision-making, patient experience, and patient literacy, reducing aggression against doctors among elderly patients. Findings suggest that the educational TV program is a promising, low-cost strategy to promote patient involvement, mitigate the violence toward physicians and improve the DPR from the patient side. Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Register (ChiCTR): ChiCTR2100042279 (17/01/2021)