WeChat-based health communication interventions enhance knowledge,
protective attitudes and behavior intentions towards canine rabies in
Shandong, China
Abstract
Introduction: In order to provide refined effects
analysis of health communication intervention, this study aims to
measure and compare the impact on the knowledge and protective attitudes
and behavior intentions(KAP) towards canine rabies of interventions that
use the local TV net(V1) and WeChat platform (V2) delivering a short
video, and cartoon pamphlet(P). Materials and Methods:
The study used a between-subject design involving repeated measures of
rabies-related KAP. 800 randomly selected villagers were randomly
allocated into four intervention groups (V1, V2, P and V2+P) and one
control. The content of video and pamphlet covered topics about rabies
prevention, route of transmission, and so on. The pamphlet was given
door to door once immediately after the pretest. One day after the
pretest, the same video was posted one time through WeChat platform, and
was broadcasted via local TV net two times each day in consecutive
fifteen days. A validated questionnaire was used to capture demographic
and KAP information. Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to
contrast the effects of interventions. Results: Our
results indicate that overall V2 outperforms V1 but underperforms P at
improving KAP scores. Our results suggest that a combined intervention
of V2 and P can result in higher scores than any of the two in
isolation. The impact on the knowledge, protective attitudes and
behavior intentions scores is revealed in a decreasing sequence.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that health
communication modes based on V1, V2, P and a combination of the two are
all effective to improve rabies-related KAP in the short term. These
findings provide a scientific basis for the implementation of health
communication intervention toward rabies and further studies are needed
to investigate the long term and other social media message elements
benefits of these interventions on the reduction of rabies incidence in
humans.