chinaadventure (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chinaadventure) wrote,@ 2007-09-10 17:04:00 |
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Taipei - across the finish line
The last week of my internship was probably the most frantic. Although I had gathered all the candy consumption data, most of the conclusions about the project would be based on data gathered from the surveys distributed to patients in the morning and afternoon clinics, and also to new patients registering at the clinic. The survey distribution to the morning clinic was hectic – more people come in the morning (91 morning patients filled out the survey), and many of them have jobs or family to go to right after their clinic appointment, so the time to fill out the survey was somewhat less and many patients didn’t even see the questions on the back. This was recorded as “missing data” but didn’t really affect awareness or recall rates because most morning clinic patients said they never saw candy with stickers. My data showed only 3% of the morning patients could remember part of the slogan on the stickers, but 100% of morning clinic patients who didn’t find out about the candy until they got the survey thought I was a jerk for giving candy to the afternoon clinic and not to them. In fact, I did give the morning clinic sticker-less candy on weekends to prevent angry patients from writing random answers on the survey, but some patients travel on weekends so they were unaware of this. The afternoon clinic was a little slower (55 afternoon patients filled out the survey) but the awareness and recall rates were higher, which pleased me greatly. The new patient survey was given to new patients who came to register at the clinic but was only distributed for four days because of delays in development, so only 7 patients filled out the survey. However, their answers were still useful for my final presentation.
Although I didn’t have time to do a complete statistical analysis on the data, the preliminary results were satisfactory. I focused on awareness (defined as having seen or heard of any type of candy from the Methadone clinic), recall (defined as the ability to remember at least 1 character from either of the two slogans on the stickers), and consumption (defined as any candy not left in the jar when it was collected at the end of the day). I also looked at patient responses to a survey question on whether the patient could draw the picture that had appeared next to the slogan, which should have been a heart or a four-leaf clover. One patient drew a clover-like object and two drew hearts. However, because the rest of the responses included stick figures, happy faces and Hello Kitty, I concluded that despite their creative responses, the patients did not remember the pictures. The results were as follows:
Current patient awareness percentage:
Objective: at least 50% of clinic patients having seen or heard of candy from the clinic.
Actual: 90.9% of afternoon patients aware of clinic candy, 72.5% of morning patients aware of clinic candy (with or without stickers).
New patient awareness percentage:
Objective: at least 10% of new patients having seen or heard of candy from the clinic.
Actual: 56.14% of new patients aware of clinic candy (with or without stickers).
Current patient recall percentage:
Objective: at least 20% of afternoon patients can recall at least 1 character from either candy slogan.
Actual: 29.09% of afternoon patients and 3% of morning patients could recall at least 1 character.
Candy consumption rate:
Objective: at least 50 pieces of candy consumed per day by afternoon clinic.
Actual: 62.4 pieces per day consumed by afternoon clinic.
My final presentation was on Friday. I was the last remaining intern so unfortunately none of my intern friends could attend, but most of the AIDS prevention staff was there, as well as Dr. Yen the hospital administrator. My presentation was in Chinese although the Powerpoint was in English, but I had translated a few key words into Chinese and also provided a paper outline of the project. Presentations in Taiwan differ from those in the U.S. mainly in that professors (or hospital management, in this case) can jump in with their questions at any time during the presentation, and can ask the presenter to skip ahead or go back to revisit whichever topic the professor/manager wants to address. This can be unnerving for presenters who are accustomed to waiting until the end of the presentation to answer questions, but I had already experienced this as a student at NCKU and had seen it at the hospital during other interns’ presentations, so I felt prepared. The only questions Dr. Yen posed during the presentation were about why I had decided to use candy instead of chocolate (which would have melted either in the clinic or in patients’ pockets). There was also a weakness in the study design (no pre-project data) and in the new patient survey (a question on having seen/heard about candy did not ask if the new patient had seen other ads about the clinic, so the results proved that new patients had seen the candy but couldn’t prove that was the only ad they saw). However, Dr. Yen concluded that he was impressed with the results and would consider adding candy advertisements to the needle-cleaning kits given to IDUs. He also wanted all future interns to run their projects as experiments based on behavioral science theories. Finally, he wanted to research cell phone-based public health interventions, which he felt would be both inexpensive and effective because Taipei intravenous drug users, like most Taiwanese, are never without their cell phones. Although this particular week was exhausting, it was a relief to know that my project would be continued in some form after I returned to California, and that it would give heroin addicts in Taipei a chance to lead healthier lives.
Photos from the final presentation and patient surveys: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
The last week of my internship was probably the most frantic. Although I had gathered all the candy consumption data, most of the conclusions about the project would be based on data gathered from the surveys distributed to patients in the morning and afternoon clinics, and also to new patients registering at the clinic. The survey distribution to the morning clinic was hectic – more people come in the morning (91 morning patients filled out the survey), and many of them have jobs or family to go to right after their clinic appointment, so the time to fill out the survey was somewhat less and many patients didn’t even see the questions on the back. This was recorded as “missing data” but didn’t really affect awareness or recall rates because most morning clinic patients said they never saw candy with stickers. My data showed only 3% of the morning patients could remember part of the slogan on the stickers, but 100% of morning clinic patients who didn’t find out about the candy until they got the survey thought I was a jerk for giving candy to the afternoon clinic and not to them. In fact, I did give the morning clinic sticker-less candy on weekends to prevent angry patients from writing random answers on the survey, but some patients travel on weekends so they were unaware of this. The afternoon clinic was a little slower (55 afternoon patients filled out the survey) but the awareness and recall rates were higher, which pleased me greatly. The new patient survey was given to new patients who came to register at the clinic but was only distributed for four days because of delays in development, so only 7 patients filled out the survey. However, their answers were still useful for my final presentation.
Although I didn’t have time to do a complete statistical analysis on the data, the preliminary results were satisfactory. I focused on awareness (defined as having seen or heard of any type of candy from the Methadone clinic), recall (defined as the ability to remember at least 1 character from either of the two slogans on the stickers), and consumption (defined as any candy not left in the jar when it was collected at the end of the day). I also looked at patient responses to a survey question on whether the patient could draw the picture that had appeared next to the slogan, which should have been a heart or a four-leaf clover. One patient drew a clover-like object and two drew hearts. However, because the rest of the responses included stick figures, happy faces and Hello Kitty, I concluded that despite their creative responses, the patients did not remember the pictures. The results were as follows:
Current patient awareness percentage:
Objective: at least 50% of clinic patients having seen or heard of candy from the clinic.
Actual: 90.9% of afternoon patients aware of clinic candy, 72.5% of morning patients aware of clinic candy (with or without stickers).
New patient awareness percentage:
Objective: at least 10% of new patients having seen or heard of candy from the clinic.
Actual: 56.14% of new patients aware of clinic candy (with or without stickers).
Current patient recall percentage:
Objective: at least 20% of afternoon patients can recall at least 1 character from either candy slogan.
Actual: 29.09% of afternoon patients and 3% of morning patients could recall at least 1 character.
Candy consumption rate:
Objective: at least 50 pieces of candy consumed per day by afternoon clinic.
Actual: 62.4 pieces per day consumed by afternoon clinic.
My final presentation was on Friday. I was the last remaining intern so unfortunately none of my intern friends could attend, but most of the AIDS prevention staff was there, as well as Dr. Yen the hospital administrator. My presentation was in Chinese although the Powerpoint was in English, but I had translated a few key words into Chinese and also provided a paper outline of the project. Presentations in Taiwan differ from those in the U.S. mainly in that professors (or hospital management, in this case) can jump in with their questions at any time during the presentation, and can ask the presenter to skip ahead or go back to revisit whichever topic the professor/manager wants to address. This can be unnerving for presenters who are accustomed to waiting until the end of the presentation to answer questions, but I had already experienced this as a student at NCKU and had seen it at the hospital during other interns’ presentations, so I felt prepared. The only questions Dr. Yen posed during the presentation were about why I had decided to use candy instead of chocolate (which would have melted either in the clinic or in patients’ pockets). There was also a weakness in the study design (no pre-project data) and in the new patient survey (a question on having seen/heard about candy did not ask if the new patient had seen other ads about the clinic, so the results proved that new patients had seen the candy but couldn’t prove that was the only ad they saw). However, Dr. Yen concluded that he was impressed with the results and would consider adding candy advertisements to the needle-cleaning kits given to IDUs. He also wanted all future interns to run their projects as experiments based on behavioral science theories. Finally, he wanted to research cell phone-based public health interventions, which he felt would be both inexpensive and effective because Taipei intravenous drug users, like most Taiwanese, are never without their cell phones. Although this particular week was exhausting, it was a relief to know that my project would be continued in some form after I returned to California, and that it would give heroin addicts in Taipei a chance to lead healthier lives.
Photos from the final presentation and patient surveys: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a
