The informative brochure about IE incorporates the Health Belief Model, to encourage a change of behaviour. The HBM is used as a template to decide what information should be displayed on the brochure. Patients with congenital heart diseases have a higher risk of getting infectious endocarditis, however frequently they are not sufficiently informed or coached by health care providers about their risk and how to decrease it. (13). Risk factors and risk groups are therefore included in the brochure to educate patients of their susceptibility. Moreover, to increase the perceived seriousness of IE the brochure holds information about the incidence, mortality and complications; this gives the reader an idea of how important early recognition is. The perceived barriers and benefits will be addressed in the brochure as well in a form that points out how the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, describing how patients can reduce their risk.
In terms of the how the …show more content…
(14) The group of patients suffering from IE or know others with the disease is small, and it is therefore difficult for them to support each other. The Facebook page gives patients from all around the world the opportunity to get informed and get in touch with each other, this stimulates peer support which has been shown beneficial in several studies (15). Furthermore our posts are alternating between videos, websites and images, which correlates to the multimedia theory. We find videos especially useful, as it provides visual guidance, combined with auditory explanation, and the video can be paused and replayed at any time. This is an important part of the Dual Code theory as well as the Multimedia-, and Cognitive Load theory. The content of the uploads correlate with the different elements of the Health Belief Model, but also basic information that helps them understand their