NHS Employers Flu Fighters Campaign - Essay Example

Critically Consider the Application of Theory for Health Communication to the NHS employers’ flu fighters’ campaign Introduction The National Health Service (NHS) employers together with the Public Health of England are seasonally supported by the Department of Health to conduct a flu campaign across the country for all the NHS staff members. The team is well funded and equipped with the required materials and resources. Over the years, the vaccination exercise has been a success for the team since they have witnessed a significant increase in the number of the health workers vaccinated every year. It is therefore evident that the team has not only been successful in committing its valuable time and resources in the flu campaign but also in reaching out to the targeted individuals. Rationale for your choice of methods and health topic Flu is a common illness that occurs every year in the United Kingdom. It is highly infectious and it symptoms develops quickly. The most common symptoms include chills, headache, muscle and joint pains and fever. The health workers are vulnerable to the flu just like the young children and other adults and are likely to spread the flu to the patients and to the fellow colleagues. Statics have shown that people with flu are eleven times more likely to die if they have other health conditions (Vaughan and Tinker, 2009, p. 6-7). The young children and the expectant mothers are also more vulnerable to flu more than the other members of the society. The flu uptake by the health workers has increased from a forty six percent in the 2012/2013 campaign period to a fifty five percent in the 2013/2014 campaign period. The flu fighting campaign has been a common experience for the health workers in the United Kingdom. Every year, the Department of health provides adequate resources and materials to aid the flu vaccination campaigns. This campaign has therefore become an important part of the budget of the Department of Health since it is carried out every year. Lately, the Flu fighting team has won a national award for making the flu fighting campaign the most successive. Through hard work and determination of the team members, the vaccination program has been able to target more than seventy five percent of the health workers in the previous year and recording the highest possible figure since the campaign was initiated. Reaching out the target population has not always been an easy task for the flu fighter team. In fact, over the years, it has been a great source of challenges to the flu fighter team. Bearing in mind that the target population is the local medical staff members, reaching out to them is a bit tricky since such individuals are always occupied at work and not forgetting that they also have families. Medical job are a bit demanding when it comes to time issues and therefore securing time to convince such individuals to get vaccinated is almost impossible. However, the NHS flu fighter campaign team has been able to find breakthroughs in this particular campaign. There are various methods employed by the team members so as to reach out to the target population. These communication methods include use of posters and leaflets, frequent visits to the clinical areas, wearing of T-shirts with a logo and other information on the importance of the flu vaccination, use of stickers after vaccination, use of drop-in sessions and weekend sessions, use of banners, balloons and even DVDs. During the campaign, the team eventually makes sure that everyone who attends a routine checkup gets vaccinated since this may be the only time that a particular person is available for the vaccination. The Flu Fighters also make sure that they are adequately available for the medical officer who could not make it to the organized sessions. Through the use of the posters and the leaflets, the Flu Fighters were able to adequately communicate the importance of the seasonal flu vaccination to the health officers. The posters normally get hanged in strategic notice boards and around staff transport areas while the leaflets which are more flexible are issued in the parks and even shuttle buses. Leaflets are a mobile form of the posters only that they are smaller in size and convey a lesser information when compared to a poster (Andreason, 2006, p. 14). By frequenting the clinical areas, the flu fighter team is able to make sure that it continues to emphasize on the need of all the medical officers getting a flu vaccination. This is clearly one of the most successful methods used in the campaign since the medical staffs are able to directly get involved. Further, the flu fighters wore a specific colored T-shirt that conveyed special information to the target group. Through the use of such T-shirts, it is possible to easily catch the attention of most individuals in the target group. Generally, the drop-in sessions are normally held every day but the weekend sessions are only on a specific time frame. Through the sessions, the medical staffs do not only get a free flu vaccination but also free tips on how to avoid contracting flu and why it is important to avoid the germ. Banners, balloons and the DVDs all aimed at reaching out to the larger population. Critically discuss the application of relevant communication principles and theories for the chosen health promotion method Communication plays quite an essential role in the different actions that aims at improving health of the single individuals or the entire community (Hubley et.al. 2013, p. 43). How else could we be able to promote the healthy choices in our communities if there is no communication? The communication process is therefore multi-dimensional and influenced by a number of key factors. Over the years, the health promotion work across the world has received mixed attentions by the different scholars of the world despite emerging as a critical area in the field of health sciences and medicine. Information flow from the source to the targeted population has been a major challenge to the efforts made by the different persons in elevating the healthy life standards in the different communities of the world. For effective exchange of information from the health practitioners to the targeted audience there has always been a need for integration of the relevant communication principles as well as the proper theoretical models in communication. Communication principles are vital in health promotion for they are actually the underlying factors to the entire communication process. Through the communication principles, a person can be able to pass the message to the intended person or persons without much difficulty. Therefore, for there to be effective communication, an application of relevant communication principles has to be integrated in the entire communication process. Health promotion especially the community-based health promotions have to make use of proper communication principles for easier and accurate passage of information to the targeted population (Green, 2010, p. 45). In the case of the NHS flu fighting campaign, the team adequately made use of relevant communication principles. First, the team was quite aware of its audience and hence took adequate time to prepare their campaign not only material wise but also knowledge wise. By knowing the audience the flu fighter team was able to establish the communication needs and literacy skills of the target group. They knew where to place their posters and where to distribute the leaflets. Further, the team had a purpose; to immunize all the medical officers against the flu. Also, the flu fighter team was able to present its information in a number of ways; use of logos, banners, posters and even balloons. Public health campaigns are aimed at attempting to influence or inform the behaviors of a specific group of individuals within a certain period of time by use of various activities and methods through multiple channels to help produce noncommercial benefits to the individual persons and to the society at large (Berry, 2007, p. 230). A successful public health campaign results from integration of proper communication throughout the health promotion campaign (Rice and Aktin, 2001, p. 96). The campaign designer has to therefore ensure that he or she performs a situational analysis and adequately sets adequate objectives that would eventually result into development of proper strategies to be implemented in the program (French, 2010, p. 25). A good health campaign cannot be implemented without proper development of informational and persuasive messages to be used to woo the targeted audience. The informational messages developed by the campaign designer therefore forms the basis of communication in a health promotion campaign. Proper communication in this case entails the use of communication principles and theories to the level best such that the team members are able to gather the appropriate information from the audience. Even though there have not been specific theories that are used in public health promotion campaigns across the world, there are a number of theories that are widely applicable to most health promotion campaigns. Such theories include the theory of planned behavior, Health belief model and trans-theoretical model (Dixey, 2013, p.11; Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008, p. 215-237). In this case, the Flu Fighter team made use of the health belief model also referred to as the psychological theory and also the theory of planned behavior. Psychological theory/ Health Belief Model This model has been used in the past by the different scholars of the world to predict and explain the health behaviors of the different individuals. By strongly focusing on the beliefs and the attitudes of the different individual persons, it is possible to predict their intended health behaviors. The model all together explores both the long-term and the short-term health behaviors in the different individuals (Edberg, 2015, p. 37). According to Corcoran (2007, p. 15-16), the theory works under the assumption that every person would take precautions to avoid negative health practices and that that particular person has a positive expectations towards the steps he or she has made or intends to make towards avoiding the negative health activities and not forgetting the fact that the person taking the precaution has to believe in the success of his or her actions. The Health Belief model was used in NHS flu fighter campaign in more than one way. Explaining and predicting the health actions by the medical staff needs the integration of the health belief model in one way or another since the health belief model explains more on factors that are likely to influence the behavioral changes in the respective individual persons. Further breaking down the model into simpler components, there are the elements of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and barriers to strategies of actions and self efficacy which are crucial in determining the behavioral changes in the different individual persons. The theory can further be used to evaluate the different opinions by the different medical staffs in relation to the flu and the seriousness of the condition. Further, one can use the theory to analyze what really influenced the medical staffs to get the vaccination. Through the perceived benefits, it is possible also to establish what really happened over the years since the number of the medical staffs taking the vaccination has significantly gone up. Theory of Planned Behavior/ Reasoned Action In the past, different individuals used to believe that the behaviors by the different individuals were voluntary and under control of the individual person. Later on, different scientists established the fact that behaviors can as well be planned and deliberate. This paved way for the development of the theory of planned behaviors that adequately predicts the planned and deliberate behaviors by the different individuals. Practically, this theory suggests that one’s behaviors are determined by the intention one has towards performing a particular behavior. The intention further acts as a function of his or her attitude towards the particular behavior (Corcoran 2007, p. 15-16). According to Gill (2006, p. 8), intentions are always the best predictors of a certain behavior. Intentions show how a particular individual is ready to articulate a certain behavior. The intentions one has towards a behavior are therefore highly influenced by one’s attitude. During the past flu campaigns, the NHS employers have employed the theory of planned behavior to predict the behaviors of some of the medical staff members. Having passed the vaccination message to the different individuals through the different methods of communication, the NHS employers had been able to spread the good intentions of the flu vaccination program. This may therefore be the underlying reason why the flu campaign was able to reach out to more individuals as compared to the preceding years. Through the Theory of Reasoned Action it is therefore possible to analyze the intended behaviors of the individuals or groups of individuals (Munro et.al, 2007, p. 13-17). Critical assessment of the role of psychological theory in communication to effect behavior change within the target group The Health Belief model has been associated with a number of health behaviors and subject populations ranging from the health preventive behaviors which in this case include the different health promotion campaigns; vaccinations and the contraceptive practices, the sick-role behaviors as well as clinic use (Upton & Thirlaway, 2014, p. 236). Health Belief model has therefore proved quite applicable in quite a number of medical fields. The model itself can be broken down into three major parts; individual’s perception, modifying factors and the likelihood of action (Glanz et.al, 2002, p. 20). The individual’s perception is the part that generally addresses the issues of the individual’s perceived susceptibility. This is where an individual develops a personal opinion about a condition and starts evaluating his or her chances of getting infected by the condition (Glanz et.al, 2010, p. 410). Just before an individual assesses his or her susceptibility to a condition, there are several factors that adequately influence his or her perception. Such factors include age, ethnicity, gender, socio-economics, knowledge and even personality (Glanz et.al, 2002, p. 25). Once an individual fully assesses his or her susceptibility to a condition he or she goes on to evaluate the perceived threats to preventing the condition or the disease. At this point, there is a likelihood of the individual developing a new health behavior (Stretcher et.al, 1997, p.113-117). Evaluating the threat is not a simple task since there is a lot of pressure not only from the demographic factors but also from the information from the media, symptoms and education. Further, the individual now weighs his or her perceived benefits against the barriers to behavior change. At this point also there is also a probability of the individual person changing his or her health behavior. The psychological theory therefore plays a significant role in communication particularly in effecting behavioral changes in different individuals or in different groups of individuals. Generally, the psychological theory did help the NHS employer flu fighter campaign in understanding the different behavioral and psychological processes in the health of the different medical staffs as well as in the different clinical areas (Kiger, 2004, p. 23). During the NHS employer flu fighter campaign, the model adequately integrated the different medical staff’s beliefs regarding the flu with the perceived benefits of being vaccinated and the barriers of taking the vaccination. This is how the different medical staffs are able to make a decision on taking or not taking the vaccine. Therefore, the model further explains more on the impact of the different cultural, behavioral and psychological factors either directly or indirectly and their contributions on the health of an individual (Marks et.al, 2005, p. 17-20). By understanding the behavioral factors of the different medical staffs, the NHS employer flu fighter campaign team is able to apply the knowledge and work directly with other stakeholders in ensuring that the vaccination program is successful. The NHS employer flu fighter campaign team therefore fully takes advantage of the knowledge that is gathered while conducting their vaccination program and adequately improves on their shortcomings. Also, through this theory, adequately helps the NHS employer flu fighter campaign team asses the vaccination program as a behavior change program. Over the years, behavioral change programs have become a centre of interest in defining people’s actions (Wright et.al, 2008 p.18). This further enabled the NHS employer flu fighter campaign team be able to adequately prove how availability of information can influence behavioral changes in individuals. This is what has been termed by the different scholars of the world as behavioral change communication. In behavioral change communication or BBC, it is assumed that the community as well as the different individual persons get persuaded on how to behave in certain ways making their lives more healthier and safer (Cororan, 2011, p. 24). Availing information to the target group is a major technique employed by the NHS employer flu fighter campaign team in influencing the decision of taking the vaccination by different medical staffs. Behavioral change communication has also in the past been successfully employed in TB and HIV prevention projects across the world. With the changing times, it has even grown to be integrated in almost all the communication activities to single individual person or the entire community and has proved vital in positively impacting behavior changes. Conclusion Communication is one of the most significant key success factors in the flu vaccination campaign by the NHS employers. Communication is itself a complex process for it gets influenced by the environmental factors but the process is adequately simplified when an individual is able to analyze his or her audience and the environment he or she operates in. Needs of the target group, the literacy skills as well as the communication need of a target group are amongst the few factors that enable individuals to easily pass the information from one individual to another. The environmental factors have to also be favorable. This means that without favorable environmental factors, there is no effective communication. Effective communication is a key factor in any health promotion activity. Reaching out to the different individuals and convincing them to adopt a certain healthy behavior is not only hard but also expensive. There is therefore a likelihood of wasting resources and not being able to deliver the intended information to the target group. 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