Use of on-demand video to provide patient education on spinal cord injury

Persons with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) have a high lifetime need for ongoing patient education to reduce the risk of serious and costly medical conditions. We have addressed this need through monthly in-person public education programs called SCI Forums. More recently, we began videotaping these programs for streaming on our website to reach a geographically diverse audience of patients, caregivers, and providers.

We compared information from the in-person forums to that of the same forums shown streaming on our website during a 1-year period.

Both the in-person and Internet versions of the forums received high overall ratings from individuals who completed evaluation forms. Eighty-eight percent of online evaluators and 96% of in-person evaluators reported that they gained new information from the forum; 52 and 64% said they changed their attitude, and 61 and 68% said they would probably change their behavior or take some kind of action based on information they learned. Ninety-one percent of online evaluators reported that video is better than text for presenting this kind of information.

Online video is an accessible, effective, and well-accepted way to present ongoing SCI education and can reach a wider geographical audience than in-person presentations.