Effectiveness of a video intervention on fertility knowledge among university students: a randomised pre-test/post-test study

Abstract

Objectives: Recent evidence has shown that young adults have poor knowledge about reproductive health and fertility, and that interventions are needed to increase fertility awareness. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a brief video in increasing knowledge about fertility and infertility in young adults.

Methods: We carried out a two-arm, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial with a pre-test/post-test design (NCT02607761, ClinicalTrials.gov). The sample was composed of 173 undergraduates who completed a self-report questionnaire. Participants were randomly assigned to exposure or no exposure to an educational video about reproductive health and infertility (intervention group, n = 89; control group, n = 84).

Results: At baseline, participants revealed poor knowledge of infertility risk factors and fertility issues, and average knowledge of the definition of infertility. Interaction effects between group and time were found for all variables targeted in the video. Participants in the intervention group significantly increased their knowledge of fertility issues, infertility risk factors and the definition of infertility. No significant differences in post-test knowledge were observed in the control group, except for the age at which there is a marked decrease in female fertility.

Conclusions: A short video intervention is effective in increasing short-term knowledge about reproductive health and infertility. If future research using longer intervals corroborates our findings, video intervention could be a useful tool in public health prevention campaigns.

Chinese abstract

目的：最近有证据表明大学生对于生殖健康和生育知之甚少。因此需要一些干预措施来提高生育认知。这项研究的目的在于评估一段简明视频对于增加大学生生育和不育知识的有效性。

方法：我们选用双臂、平行、随机对照试验, 前后测试设计(NCT02607761, ClinicalTrials.gov)。样本由173名完成自陈问卷的大学生组成。参与者被随机分配到观看或者不观看一部关于生殖健康和不育的教学视频两组中。（干预组, n = 89；对照组, n = 84）

结果：在基线水平, 参与者都显示出缺乏对于不育风险因素和生育问题的了解, 和对不育定义的普遍认识。视频中所有定位的变量被发现在组群和时间之间产生相互影响。干预组的参与者显著提高了关于生育问题, 不育风险因素和不育定义的认识。在对照组中在观后测知识方面并没有出现显著的差异, 除了关于年龄, 这项显著降低女性生育力的因素。

结论：一部短小的视频干预在短期内能有效增加生殖健康和不育知识。如果未来研究采用更长的间隔证实我们的发现, 视频干预将会成为公共健康保卫运动中的有效工具。

Keywords:

• Below replacement fertility
• fertility awareness
• health interventions
• infertility
• intervention study
• randomised controlled trial
• young adults

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by European Union Funds (FEDER/COMPETE – Operational Competitiveness Programme) and by National Funds (FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) under the projects PTDC/MHC-PSC/4195/2012, SHRH/BPD/85789/2012 and SFRH/BD/103234/2014.