[Immunization educational game in general practice waiting rooms. A comparative study]

The general practitioner’s (GP) waiting room is an ideal place to conduct health education actions. The use of tools in GP waiting rooms would appear to be a useful approach, but the available tools are not very efficient. The objective of this study was to study the efficacy of a game compared with two other health education strategies.A comparative study was conducted in two general practices. 212 patients were divided into three groups using a paper-game or a booklet or nothing in the waiting room, before a discussion about immunization with the practitioner. The capacity of the tool to encourage questions about immunization was estimated by the GP at the end of the consultation by a questionnaire.The use of a tool in the waiting room facilitated the discussion between patients and practitioners (34% vs 12%, p0.01). The game induced longer discussions than the booklet (1 minute 32 seconds vs 1 minute 14 seconds, p0.05) without more themes. The game and the booklet had a comparable acceptability.Using a multistep education strategy facilitated discussion between the patient and the practitioner. However, the GP is required to trigger the conversation.