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Community Health Education at Student-Run Clinics Leads to Sustained Improvement in Patients’ Hepatitis B Knowledge

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Abstract

While student-run clinics are often important healthcare safety nets for underserved populations, their efficacy for improving patient health knowledge has not been thoroughly explored. From September 2011 to April 2012, we assessed patients’ retention of hepatitis B virus (HBV) knowledge after receiving student-led education at two student-run HBV screening and vaccination clinics. Patient education was provided by trained first and second-year medical, nursing, and pharmacy students, aided by a script and interpreters. Patient knowledge of HBV was evaluated at three points: before education, after the initial visit, and at one-month follow-up. Student-led education produced improved knowledge of HBV transmission, prevention, and management, which was retained 1 month after education for 52 patients tracked through time. Mean scores on an HBV knowledge survey improved from 56.4 % (SD = 15.2 %) at baseline to 66.6 % (SD = 15.1 %) after education, and 68.3 % (SD = 15.2 %) after one month. There was a statistically significant difference between the first and second (paired T test, p < 0.001) and the first and third tests (paired T test, p < 0.001), but no difference between the second and third tests (paired T test, p = 0.45). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that retention was correlated with patient educational background but independent of patient age, gender, income, primary language and number of years lived in the United States. Our study suggests that trained health professional students can effectively impart health knowledge that is retained by patients for at least 1 month. These results warrant consideration of student-led educational sessions at SRCs as a promising community health education model.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Dr. Joshua Adler and Dr. Albert Yu for their guidance and leadership in supporting the Mt. Zion and CPHC Hepatitis B clinics. Special thanks to Gladys Morazan for irreplaceable and tremendous support, our faculty preceptors for their time and eagerness to teach, Christy Boscardin for statistical advice, and Angela Chen, Judy Lim, and Berkeley VHIO for their interpretation help.

Conflicts of interest

All authors report no financial conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    David Ouyang & Neal Yuan

  2. Department of Medicine, University of California, 505 Parnassus Ave, M1078, Box 0120, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0120, USA

    Leslie Sheu & Cindy J. Lai

  3. School of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Gary Lau

  4. Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Cheng Chen

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  1. David Ouyang
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  2. Neal Yuan
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  3. Leslie Sheu
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  6. Cindy J. Lai
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Correspondence to David Ouyang.

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The authors David Ouyang and Neal Yuan contributed equally to this work.

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Ouyang, D., Yuan, N., Sheu, L. et al. Community Health Education at Student-Run Clinics Leads to Sustained Improvement in Patients’ Hepatitis B Knowledge. J Community Health 38, 471–479 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-012-9631-3

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