Providing well-developed education materials can improve follow-up attendance for retinopathy of prematurity screening
Reviewed by Lauren Hepworth

he authors present a repeated measures study with parents of children at risk of developing retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Inclusion criteria for the study was parents with children born at <32 weeks or with a birth weight under 1.5kg. Participants were excluded if the child was discharged prior to an initial eye examination or already had received a ROP diagnosis. Participants were alternately placed into two groups in order of recruitment. One group received educational material currently available through American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) and the other group received new material with improved readability. The authors described the process of developing this new material. Participants were asked to complete a survey prior to their child’s initial eye examination. They were also asked to complete a survey with the same questions plus six additional questions after receipt and review of the educational materials. In addition to the survey data collection, attendance rates at first follow-up visits were recorded. A total of 240 children were recruited, 91 received the material but declined to complete the surveys, and 192 returned the pre-survey (43 of these were completed by the second parent). The knowledge of ROP and importance of follow-up significantly improved with the provision of educational material. There was also a significant difference found between the two types of educational material with the new material seeing the biggest change in knowledge. Follow-up data was available for 78% of children recruited. Attendance at follow-up appointments improved with the provision of educational materials, this improvement was significant for the new educational material. Participants receiving the newly developed material reported more often that it was easy to understand. The authors acknowledge the possibility of non-response bias as a limitation of this study. This study highlights the importance of providing educational material for parents, however well-developed materials, that are easy to understand, are more effective for improving follow-up attendance.

Improving follow-up rates by optimizing patient educational materials in retinopathy of prematurity.
McCahon H, Chen V, Paz EF, et al.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR PEDIATRIC OPHTHALMOLOGY AND STRABISMUS
2023;27:134.