Stroke Literacy Video for Patients and Families: Symptoms, Risk Factors, and Prevention (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Most vascular events after stroke may be prevented by modifying vascular risk factors through medical and behavioral interventions. Stroke literacy, an understanding of stroke symptoms, risk factors, and treatment, likely contributes to vascular risk factor control and in turn stroke recurrence risk. Video-based interventions targeting stroke literacy may help acute stroke survivors understand stroke and subsequently reduce stroke recurrence. However, failure of prior stroke literacy interventions may be due in part to the fact that the interventions were not theory-driven. OBJECTIVE To develop a video-based educational intervention to improve stroke literacy in hospitalized acute stroke patients. METHODS The 6-step iterative process of Intervention Mapping (IM) was used to develop a video-based educational intervention and related implementation and evaluation plans. RESULTS A 5-minute video-based educational intervention was developed. The IM approach led to successful intervention development by emphasizing stakeholder involvement, generation and adoption, and information retainment in the planning phase of the intervention. CONCLUSIONS An IM approach guided the development of a video-based educational intervention to promote stroke literacy among acute stroke survivors. Future studies are needed to assess the use of technology and digital media to support wide-spread access and participation in video-based health literacy interventions for the stroke population. Studies are needed to assess the impact of video-based educational interventions paired with stroke systems of care optimization to promote stroke recurrence risk reduction. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171952