Reeves H, Grandjean Lapierre S, Razafindrina K, Andriamiadanarivo A, Rakotosamimanana N, Razafindranaivo T, Seimon T, Blalock B, Bello-Bravo J, Pittendrigh B, McKinney J, Small PM, Knoblauch AM, and Fair E
SETTING: Access to information about tuberculosis (TB) is vital to ensure timely diagnosis, treatment, and control among vulnerable communities. Improved approaches for distributing health education materials to remote populations are needed. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of two comprehensive video training curricula in improving patient, community member, and community health worker knowledge of TB in a remote area of Madagascar. DESIGN: A pre-test/post-test design was used to measure knowledge acquisition. Educational videos were short, culturally appropriate films presented at critical moments in the TB cascade of care. RESULTS: Of the total 146 participants, 86 (58.9%) improved their score on the post-test, 50 (34.2%) obtained the same score, and 10 (6.8%) received a worse score. A statistically significant difference was observed between the pre- and post-test scores, wherein scores increased by a median of 10.0% (interquartile range 0.0-20.0) after viewing the videos ( P < 0.001). There was a significant difference between the number of correct answers on the pre-test and the number of correct answers on the post-test ( P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Educational videos were found to significantly improve TB knowledge among a low-literacy, remote population in Madagascar. Our findings suggest educational videos could be a powerful, low-cost, and sustainable tool to improve access to TB education materials globally.