JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health information delivered to people via their daily modes of communication such as email, text, or telephone has been shown to support adherence to recommended screening tests, treatments, clinical appointments, and vaccinations. While different communication modes have proven successful for outcomes, patients’ perceptions of such communication modes are not well studied.

Objective:

We addressed this gap by assessing primary care patient preferences for receiving health information from their doctor’s office. We explored stated preferences by communication modes, health topics, and patient socio-demographic characteristics to gauge acceptability for future interventions.

Methods:

We used a mailed survey to recruit adult primary care patients aged 45-75 years in 2020. The survey assessed respondents' use of telephones, computers, or tablets in daily life and their preferred modes of communication for different types of health information, including educational materials about cancer screening, tips for taking prescription medication, and protection from respiratory diseases from their doctor’s office. Respondents were asked to indicate their willingness to receive messages from their doctor’s office via each of the provided modes of communication, including telephone, text, email, online patient portal, and social media using a 5-point Likert response scale with the range from unwilling to willing. We report the percent of respondents indicating their “willingness” to receive information by mode. Chi-square tests were used to compare willingness by person-level characteristics.

Results:

In total, 133 people completed the survey with a response rate of 27%. The average age of respondents was 64 years; 63% of respondents were female; 83% White, 16% African American, 1% Asian; in total, 58% reported having a bachelor’s degree or higher; 20% resided in rural areas, 29% in suburban areas, 39% in a town, and 12% in a city. The majority, 91%, of respondents reported being comfortable with their income. Preferences for cancer screening information were distributed as follows: 75% of respondents were willing to receive information from their doctor’s office via their patient portal, 74% via email, 56% via text, 45% via the hospital website, 38% via telephone, and 11% via social media. About 5% of respondents were unwilling to receive communication by any mode. Preferences of respondents varied by age, gender, education, and race. Respondents’ preferences were distributed similarly for health information related to prescription medications and protection from respiratory diseases.

Conclusions:

To optimize health communication and reach a socio-diverse population it is important to use a multi-mode approach when distributing health messages. Clinical Trial: NA