Didactic or Narrative? Assessing the Effectiveness of Video Style on Breast Cancer Patients’ view on their Workplaces.

Awardee:  Sarah Kehoe

Graduate Program: MSc

Institution: St. Mary’s University

Supervisor(s): Lucie Kocum

ARCC Program Area(s): Survivorship

Competition: 2016

Project Summary:

The Canadian Cancer Society predicts breast cancer cases in Canada will increase 55.4 per cent by 2032 (Canadian Cancer Society, 2015). Currently there is little research on patient education on the psychosocial effects of cancer and the workplace. Research progress must keep up with increasing survival rates as the lack of patient education could become problematic in the future. My research proposes to evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge translation (KT) videos (didactic & narrative) on educating newly diagnosed breast cancer patients on the barriers and psychosocial effects of cancer and the workplace. I aim to 1) understand the effect of presenting different methods of health information; 2) understand if timeliness is influential in a health information intervention. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research defines KT as “a dynamic and iterative process that includes synthesis, dissemination, exchange and ethically-sound application of knowledge to improve the health of Canadians, provide more effective health services and products and strengthen the health care system” (2015). This research study will use a questionnaire to test the impact of a narrative video, didactic video, and an electronic infographic on approximately 100 employed women with breast cancer in Nova Scotia. The objective of using videos in this research is to educate or increase the participant’s knowledge and to effect psychosocial change of the participant, primarily through their behaviours. This will be measured by a questionnaire distributed twice over 6 months, that will evaluate the pre and post knowledge, attitudes and practices of participants. This research is important for recognizing a gap in the research in regards to the role of evaluations of KT based patient education and aims to contribute to the greater body of knowledge. This study will emphasize the importance of creating research based KT as well as the importance of content evaluations to ensure KT content created is helpful and directed at the intended audience.