Awareness campaign to improve care for low back pain

Name: - Awareness Campaign Details: - A standing 55-inch LCD screen will be positioned in the Emergency Department waiting room of participating Hospitals. - Between the hours of 6am and 10pm the waiting room screen will display the Awareness Campaign. Screen goes black between 10pm -6am. - The Awareness Campaign includes 5 digital posters and a patient education leaflet. The posters and leaflets were designed specifically for this study. - The posters address misconceptions about imaging for low back pain, and encourage the public to consider their options and ask questions of their doctor: o Scan your options, not your back o Back scans can cause harm o Back scans can lead to unnecessary procedures o Back scans rarely locate the source of low back pain o Ask your doctor what the alternatives to imaging are - Each poster is displayed on the screen for 10 seconds. Total Campaign run time = 50secs. The Campaign is continuously looped between 6am and 10pm. Participants can view the screen and/or take a patient education leaflet at their discretion. Although they will be positioned in highly visible locations of the waiting room, there is no obligation to view either the posters or the leaflet. - The patient education leaflet describes the Awareness Campaign messages in more detail. The leaflet was designed specifically for this study. - All Emergency Department staff will be notified of the campaign by their Head of Department. The Head of Department will circulate a copy of the patient education leaflet that will be made available during the intervention periods. - During the intervention periods the patient education leaflets will be positioned in a rack adjacent to the screen and in the ED nursing and doctor’s stations - The Awareness Campaign runs for one week at a time for a total of 3 weeks (ie 3x 1week "on" periods) - During the "run-in" period (6 weeks prior to the first intervention 'A' period) the participants will be exposed to a usual ED waiting room (no LCD screen display or leaflets available). Imaging rates and patient satisfaction will be measured using routinely collected data. Tailoring: - The Intervention will not be individually tailored Fidelity: - Campaign display duration and unexpected disruptions can be monitored remotely - We will audit the number of patient education leaflets given out - We are conducting a qualitative study of 15 people in the waiting to determine: awareness, visibility, understanding, and views of the campaign