Client: Pink Hope
Researcher: Lynn Teoh
Timeline: 2 weeks

Background:

Pink Hope is an Australian not-for-profit organisation raising awareness and support for those at an increased genetic risk of cancer. At time of involvement, clinician attendance at the in-person education events was lower than desired and I was tasked with exploring how clinician attendance could be improved in order to drive the clinical behaviour change desired.

Goals:

• Explore current motivations and barriers for clinician attendance at in-person education events

• Identify new opportunities for increasing clinician attendance at in-person education events organised by Pink Hope

Research methods used: 

• Audit of current clinician outreach activities

• In-person observation at a Pink Hope education event 

• Academic journal review

• Semi-structured interviews 

• Survey

• Preliminary usability testing of Pink Hope website (task: find and book into an education event for clinicians)

• Competitor usability testing of Pink Hope competitor websites (task: find and book into an education event for clinicians)

Key findings summary:

• Pink Hope event findability, and scanning patterns observed in clinicians: Clinicians scanned websites extremely quickly, more reliant compared to non-clinical participants on key words and high-contrast buttons to indicate next steps. Clinician findability of events on website was markedly reduced compared to average population (average time on task, 3m 24s, n=3 vs average population 56s, n=4). 

• Specific to the Melbourne inner-city area, clinicians without a pre-existing special interest in generic risk of cancer had a low level of interest in attending an in-person education event regarding genetic cancer risk

• However, clinician interest in attending an in-person education event was observed to increase when clinicians were notified (or reminded that) their primary place of work had a higher-than-average percentage of people with Jewish ancestry based on census data.

• Most clinicians interviewed had firm barriers between personal and professional lives, and did not follow organisations like Pink Hope either on social media or mailing lists, citing work-life balance and “messaging overload”. 

• General primary motivators (or facilitators) to clinician attendance at in-person education events included personal interest in topic, convenience, ability to attend based on rostering and/or ability to use personal leave, perceived importance of topic to day-to-day clinical practice, and perceived value of topic to professional advancement 

• General primary barriers to clinician attendance at in-person education events included fatigue, preference to attend events clearly targeting clinicians rather than general public, mental overwhelm with respect to after-work events, scheduling conflicts and/or inability to organise personal leave, difficulties organising childcare (if event run during evening), and alternate preferences to changing clinical behaviour (eg online events or visual prompts, eg posters in tea room).