The Program Cost of a Brief Video Intervention Shown in Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic Waiting Rooms

Patients in sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic waiting rooms represent a potential audience for delivering health messages via video-based interventions. A controlled trial at 3 sites found that patients exposed to one intervention, Safe in the City, had a significantly lower incidence of STDs compared with patients in the control condition. An evaluation of the intervention's cost could help determine whether such interventions are programmatically viable.

The cost of producing the Safe in the City intervention was estimated using study records, including logs, calendars, and contract invoices. Production costs were divided by the 1650 digital video kits initially fabricated to get an estimated cost per digital video. Clinic costs for showing the video in waiting rooms included staff time costs for equipment operation and hardware depreciation and were estimated for the 21-month study observation period retrospectively.

The intervention cost an estimated $416,966 to develop, equaling $253 per digital video disk produced. Per-site costs to show the video intervention were estimated to be $2699 during the randomized trial.

The cost of producing and implementing Safe in the City intervention suggests that similar interventions could potentially be produced and made available to end users at a price that would both cover production costs and be low enough that the end users could afford them.