Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 27, 2022; 14(5): 972-983
Published online May 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i5.972
Innovations in education: A prospective study of storytelling narratives to enhance hepatitis C virus knowledge among substance users
Andrew H Talal, Yu-Xin Ding, Marianthi Markatou
Andrew H Talal, Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14203, United States
Yu-Xin Ding, Marianthi Markatou, Department of Biostatistics, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14214, United States
Author contributions: Talal AH conceived of the study, obtained funding, supervised data collection, wrote and revised the manuscript; Markatou M obtained funding, designed the study and supervised the analysis, wrote and revised the manuscript; Ding Y designed the study and performed the analysis, wrote and revised the manuscript; all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported by the Investigator-Initiated Grant from Merck Inc, No. MISP# 57252; the Troup Fund of the Kaleida Health Foundation; and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Award, IHS-1507-31640.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the University at Buffalo (Approval No. 00002677).
Clinical trial registration statement: ClinTrials.gov Registration No. NCT04204447. Date of initial posting: December 19, 2019.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the other authors have any potential conflicts.
Data sharing statement: Data are available from the corresponding author at ahtalal@buffalo.edu upon reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The manuscript has been prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Andrew H Talal, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 875 Ellicot Street, UB CTRC 6090, Buffalo, NY 14203, United States. ahtalal@buffalo.edu
Received: January 5, 2022
Peer-review started: January 5, 2022
First decision: February 8, 2022
Revised: February 21, 2022
Accepted: April 20, 2022
Article in press: April 20, 2022
Published online: May 27, 2022
Processing time: 138 Days and 20.5 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Despite high hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence and prevalence, many substance users lack basic knowledge about HCV infection and its consequences.

Research motivation

HCV education targeted to persons with opioid use disorder (PWOUD) has largely utilized conventional written approaches through brochures and pamphlets. Innovative approaches, such as storytelling narrative videos, may be more appealing resulting in increased knowledge ascertainment and retention. Data are limited though on the ability of narrative videos to increase knowledge among substance users.

Research objectives

To assess immediate and 1 mo HCV knowledge recall and retention among substance users comparing education delivered via a storytelling narrative video to a written brochure.

Research methods

PWOUD on medication for opioid use disorder were prospectively enrolled from two sites, one site reviewed the written brochure and the other site viewed the video. Participants (n = 176), matched on age, race, and gender, completed the same knowledge assessments immediately prior to and upon completion of reading the brochure or watching the video. The same assessment was completed one month later to evaluate longer-term knowledge retention. We utilized generalized linear mixed-effects models to analyze the data.

Research results

We observed that both interventions significantly increased immediate and longer-term HCV-related knowledge. Multivariate modeling revealed significant improvements in HCV-related knowledge and retention (P = 0.033) among participants who viewed the storytelling narrative video.

Research conclusions

Storytelling narrative videos appear to be an effective strategy to increase HCV-related knowledge among PWOUD. Whether videos are an effective method to change behavior requires further investigation.

Research perspectives

Given their ability to include multimodal techniques and their ease of distribution, storytelling narrative videos may do well as an educational cornerstone to disseminate HCV-related knowledge to vulnerable populations, such as PWOUD, as well as to the general public.