Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Dermatology
Date Submitted: Jun 14, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 14, 2023 - Aug 9, 2023
Date Accepted: Nov 4, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
THE IMPACT OF WHATSAPP AS A HEALTH EDUCATION TOOL IN ALBINISM: AN INTERVENTIONAL STUDY
ABSTRACT
Background:
Oculocutaneous albinism is a congenital disorder that causes hypopigmentation of the skin, hair and eyes due to lack of melanin. People with albinism (PWA) are at increased risk of developing skin complications - solar keratosis and skin cancers which increases morbidity. As education is crucial in managing albinism, leveraging information technology such as WhatsApp can provide an effective intervention for digital health education.
Objective:
It is to assess the impact of WhatsApp as a tool for providing health education among PWAs.
Methods:
The design of the study was interventional. The intervention consisted of weekly health education sessions conducted in a WhatsApp group over 4 weeks. The topics discussed were knowledge of albinism, sun protection practices, use of sunscreen and myths of albinism. They were all covered in 4 WhatsApp sessions had in 4 separate days. An online questionnaire was filled before and after the intervention. Mann – Whitney U test was used to compare the pre and post knowledge scores. Spearman’s correlation was used to correlate data.
Results:
The mean age of study participants was 28.28 years. The number of participants in the pre and post intervention period were 140 and 66 respectively. Statistically significant increase in overall knowledge (P =.01), knowledge of sunscreen (P =.01); and sun protection (P <.010) was seen in post intervention.
Conclusions:
WhatsApp is an effective tool for educating PWAs and can act as an alternative for the conventional methods of health education. It shows promising outcome irrespective of the health literacy level of PWAs.
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