Health belief model intervention to increase compliance with emergency department patients

The effects on compliance of clinical and telephone intervention, based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), were investigated for 842 Emergency Department (ED) patients. The influence of mediating variables on compliance was also examined. Compliance was defined operationally as follow-through on a recommended referral originating in the ED. The study design was a 2 X 2 X 11 factorial design, in which the first factor was the HBM clinical intervention, the second was the HBM telephone intervention, and the third was the type of presenting problem. Patients were randomly assigned to one of four intervention groups, with all nursing care, interventions, and follow-up telephone calls being done by the research nurse. The HBM clinical, telephone, and combination clinical/telephone interventions were strongly associated with increased compliance in the 11 presenting problems. Availability of child care, knowledge of presenting problem, nature and duration of the illness, and demographic variables (such as age of the patient) were also related to compliance.