This study evaluates the community-based health education program in improving early testing for COVID-19, increasing vaccination acceptability and enhancing emergency preparedness and self-protection measures against COVID-19 in HK. We established a partnership with several local community stakeholders and they will be responsible for recruiting participants and implementing educational programs. Half of the community collaborators will receive the core intervention package, and use it as education material. The other half will be encouraged to self-collect and send health information to the participants.
This health education program is based on a Community-based Participants Research (CBPR) approach, which is a partnership approach that equitably involves community members and researchers in all aspects of the research process. Given the different cultural, professional or living background of Hong Kong residents, we think this simple, flexible and sustainable approach will effectively mitigate the COVID-19 risk in HK society, An academic-community collaboration platform with several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), companies and schools will be established before this study. They will work together to recruit participants, design and implement a series of educational programs aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the community.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
1,200
Community-based Health Education will potentially include the following three components: 1. A manual of emergency preparedness and self-protection against COVID-19 infection. The main content will include hand washing, mask wearing and social distancing guidelines. 2. Early testing. Participants will be trained on how to recognize the early symptoms of COVID-19 and appropriate practice to take in a response, and they will be provided with testing resources. 3. Knowledge of vaccines and their benefits and resources for vaccination. Collaborators should design and implement health programs based on the core intervention package.
Collaborators are encouraged to collect and share health information to the participants. Shared information should be previewed by researchers.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Hong Kong
RECRUITINGVaccination rates
The number of participants who received a new dose of COVID-19 vaccine over the total number of participants.
Time frame: 3 months
The knowledge towards COVID-19 vaccine
The knowledge towards COVID-19 vaccine will be measured by 15 items in the self-administered questionnaire. All the items are binary- choice Items (1=Ture, 2= False). The total score ranged from 15 to 30 and a higher score indicates poorer knowledge towards COVID-19 vaccine.
Time frame: 3 months
The hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccine
The hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccine will be measured by Chinese version of adult Vaccine Hesitancy Scale (aVAS), which includes 10 items of 5-point Likert scale, ranging from least hesitant (1) to most hesitant (5). In total 3 of aVAS are negatively worded and 7 are positively worded. The total score of aVAS is 50 with a score higher than 25 indicated high vaccine hesitancy.
Time frame: 3 months
Perceived confidence of COVID-19 vaccine
The confidence of COVID-19 vaccine will be measured by 11 items with 5-point Likert scale with "strongly disagree", "disagree", "neither agree nor disagree", "agree" and "strongly agree". The total score ranges from 11 to 55 with higher score indicating higher confidence of COVID-19 vaccine..
Time frame: 3 months
Perceived barriers of receiving COVID-19 vaccine
The perceived barriers of COVID-19 vaccine will be measured by 4 items with 5-point Likert scale with "strongly disagree", "disagree", "neither agree nor disagree", "agree" and "strongly agree". The total score ranges from 4 to 20 with higher score indicating higher perceived barriers of COVID-19 vaccine..
Time frame: 3 months
The amount of early testing
The amount of early testing will be measured by self-reported number of early-testing with rapid antigen testing (RAT) in a month.
Time frame: 3 months
The levels of acceptability for early testing
The levels of acceptability for early testing will be measured by 3 items with 5-point Likert scale with "strongly disagree", "disagree", "neither agree nor disagree", "agree" and "strongly agree". The total score ranges from 3 to 15 with higher score indicating higher acceptability of early testing.
Time frame: 3 months
The frequency of washing hands with soap or hand sanitizer
The amount of early testing will be measured by self-reported number of hand-washing behaviors with soap or hand sanitizer per day in the past week.
Time frame: 3 months
The frequency of washing hands with alcohol-based hand rub
The amount of early testing will be measured by self-reported number of hand-washing behaviors with alcohol-based hand rub per day in the past week.
Time frame: 3 months
The knowledge of proper self-protection
The knowledge of proper self-protection correctly will be measured 13 items in the self-administered questionnaire. All the items are binary- choice Items (1=Ture, 2= False). The total score ranged from 13 to 26 and a higher score indicates poorer knowledge of self-protection.
Time frame: 3 months
Stress status
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4) will be used to measure the stress level.
Time frame: 3 months
Anxiety status
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-2) will be used to measure the level of anxiety.
Time frame: 3 months
Depression status
The Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) will be used to measure the depression status.
Time frame: 3 months
Participants' satisfactory level
The participants' satisfactory level will be measured by asking the degree of satisfaction (1-10) in terms of vaccination, early-testing and self-protection.
Time frame: 3 months
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