Pediatric Uveitis Education Enhanced Through Child-Narrated, Peer-Reviewed Video

A collaboratively-designed pediatric uveitis education video, which involves narration from pediatric patients with the disorder and peer review from clinical experts, can improve uveitis knowledge among pediatric patients and their caretakers, according to research published in Eye. Using this strategy to create other educational videos may potentially limit misinformation and improve clinical outcomes, the report suggests. 

“Children and young people have become increasingly involved in their own medical decision-making, with particular focus on their ability to assent even if they cannot legally consent to treatment,” the researchers explain. However, they caution, “the absence of peer review may result in medical misinformation.”

Investigators included 43 pediatric patients (mean age, 10.9 years) who underwent uveitis management (average disease duration, 3.2 years) at a single center in the study. Prior to watching the pediatric uveitis education video, participants answered 3 questions involving self-rated knowledge and 6 questions that tested objective knowledge. The 6 objective questions and 2 of the self-rated questions were repeated after watching the video. 

The researchers stratified participants according to age (younger than 12 years vs older than 12 years), disease duration, and treatment type and measured changes in knowledge scores. 

Overall, the report shows that the pediatric uveitis education video improved self-rated  knowledge in all of the subgroups (P =.001). These improvements were particularly notable among patients with a new uveitis diagnosis (P <.001). Objective knowledge scores also increased, and these improvements were most significant among children younger than 12 years, participants with new disease, and patients receiving steroid only treatment (P <.001 for all). A total of 65% of participants reported learning something new from the video. 

“This study employed a ‘patients as partners’ approach, from engineering the ideas for intervention to designing the educational content,” according to the study authors. “This takes into account the wishes and preferences of children and young people in their treatment plans, while understanding that their communication needs may be different to adults.”

Study limitations include a small sample size and short duration, which limited the ability to measure long-term pediatric uveitis education recall.