Patient and clinician engagement with health information in the primary care waiting room: A mixed methods case study

Background. Primary care waiting rooms can be sites of health promotion and health literacy development through the provision of readily accessible health information. To date, few studies have considered patient engagement with televised health messages in the waiting room, nor have studies investigated whether patients ask their clinicians about this information. The aim of this study was therefore to examine patient (or accompanying person) and clinician engagement with waiting room health information, including televised health messages. Design and methods. The mixed methods case study was undertaken in a regional general practice in Victoria, Australia, utilising patient questionnaires, waiting room observations, and clinician logbooks and interviews. The qualitative data were analysed by content analysis; the questionnaire data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results. Patients engaged with a range of health information in the waiting room and reportedly received health messages from this information. 44% of the questionnaire respondents (33 of 74) reported watching the television health program, and half of these reported receiving a take home health message from this source. Only one of the clinicians (N=9) recalled a patient asking about the televised health program. Conclusions. The general practice waiting room remains a site where people engage with the available health information, with a televised health ‘infotainment’ program receiving most attention from patients. Our study showed that consumption of health information was primarily passive and tended not to activate patient discussions with clinicians. Future studies could investigate any link between the health infotainment program and behaviour change. Significance for public health Primary care waiting rooms are traditionally sites of health promotion, with leaflets and posters providing opportunities for patient education about disease prevention and treatment information for common illnesses. This case study in regional Australia investigated how and to what extent patients, accompanying persons and primary care providers engaged with the health information in their waiting rooms. Despite the ubiquity of personalised digital communication tools, the findings showed that patients engage with and continue to value health information in the general practice waiting room. By knowing more about patient behaviours and preferences for the mode of health messages (e.g. via screen), medical practices can better target their audience. The study also investigated the connection between the health messages in the waiting room and whether this activated patients to ask their doctor about these messages. To optimise the benefits of patient education materials in the waiting room, practices should seek opportunities to keep clinicians up to date with the resources on offer and refer patients to these resources when relevant as did the practice nurses in this study. We also suggest that clinician familiarity with the resources can be fostered by a dedicated person in the practice. For example, at the conclusion of this case study, the clinic involved decided to add patient health information resources to the weekly meeting agenda, for which one of the registrars volunteered to take responsibility.