MARA University of Technology

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

EDU 702: RESEARCH METHODOLOGYLecturer: Dr. Johan @ Eddy Luaran

FIRST DRAFT RESEARCH PROPOSALHEALTH LITERACY: HOW VISUALS CAN INTERPRET THE HEALTHCARE

STORY

Name: NOR SYAMIMI BINTI SAMSUDINID no: 2012359041

Email: orsya_im88@yahoo.comHP: 0174818171

Date of Submission: 4th November 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTChapter 1: BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.................................................................................1

1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................11.1 Statement of the research problem......................................................................................11.2 Research Objectives..............................................................................................................31.3 Research Questions...............................................................................................................31.4 Operational Definitions.........................................................................................................31.5 Limitation of the study..........................................................................................................41.6 Significance of the study.......................................................................................................41.7 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................5

2.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................52.1 Health literacy.......................................................................................................................52.2 Problem in understanding health information......................................................................62.3 Visual material in healthcare setting.....................................................................................62.4 Conceptual Framework.........................................................................................................72.5 Conclusion............................................................................................................................ 7

Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................83.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................83.1 Research design....................................................................................................................83.2 Population and Sample.........................................................................................................83.3 Instrumentation....................................................................................................................83.4 The method of data collection............................................................................................103.5 The method of data analysis...............................................................................................103.6 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................11The Bibliography / Reference

Appendix (if applicable)

Chapter 1

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.0 Introduction

All people in this world aspire to live a healthy life, but what is health? The World

Health Organization defines it as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-

being and not merely the absence of disease'. It is the role and the responsibility of

society to provide the right supportive environment, and is indeed ' in the interests of

sustainable development to help ensure the health and well-being of future

generations; there are urgent and widespread educational, information sharing and

research need and professional organization have important roles. (Philips, 1996)

The good health and well-being require a clean and harmonious relationship

between doctor and patients. The integration of the visual into healthcare environments

can play a important role in achieving these objective. Moreover, those who provide

healthcare now understand that communicating clearly with their patient is essential to

quality patient care and serve the quality of healthcare service.

1.1 Statement of the research problem

This research is based on several factors. Patients and their family members often

receive an overwhelming amount of health information. The content may be unfamiliar,

complicated, confusing or perhaps even frightening. The format can include numbering

data, dense text, unreadably small fonts and number presented as fractions or

decimals or percentages. Adding to these problems, patients and their families often

receive health information at times when they feel sick, distracted an are not at their

learning best. (Osborne, 2006).

"...The doctor or healthcare administrator never laid a hand on me, he or she

never touched me, he or she was hardly listening and they were busy entering stuff

into the computer and they start to do assumption on the disease about the patient.

The doctor just say the biological terminology that I cannot understand and they will

suggest the medication and do's and dont's and they asked to come back for another

4 weeks..".

(The Fading Art of The Physical Exam by Richard Knox ,2012)

Based on the statement above that stated by Richard Knox in his research, he

believed that common patient complaint about on how the doctor treats them as the

patients. The important of healthcare story is as to recognize emergencies, essential

information, to follow the medical instruction and to know what to do when they occur.

So, every patient has the rights to access competent healthcare and treatment

because this can truly be a matter of life and death. If the communication just on

verbally not attached with visual and adding with patient's emotion in that time, might

be the healthcare information end up with the wrong interpretation by the patients.

1.2 Research objectives

The objectives of this research are:

i. To identify why people have trouble in understanding healthcare story.

ii. To find out whether the visuals can help interpret the healthcare story.

iii. To produce the visuals material that can help interpret the healthcare story

1.3 Research questionsThe research questions in this research are:

i. Why people have trouble in understanding healthcare story?

ii. How visuals can help interpret the healthcare story?

iii. How to produce the visuals material that can help interpret the healthcare story?

1.4 Operational Definitions

1.4.1 Health literacy

Health literacy refers to an ability to read, understand, and act on health information.

(American Medical Association Foundation,2003)

1.4.2 Visual

Visual refers to a picture, a piece of film, or display used to illustrate or accompany

something, etc , used to make an article or a talk easier to understand or more interesting

(The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, 7th Edition, 2005)

1.4.3 Healthcare story

Healthcare story refers to the process of telling something or the communication

between the doctor to the patient about the healthcare information.

(American Medical Association Foundation,2003)

1.6 Limitation of the study

The main limitation of this research is the integration between science and art together

in one research. The researcher need to study about the medication area that not very familiar

and need to ask many expertise in this area for avoid to gain the wrong data and misleading

healthcare information. Moreover, the researcher also need to find out the variety of resources

from biological, medication and art to obtain the information.

The researcher should have to produce a visual material based on healthcare story. The

limitation also from the process of development in producing a visual material based on

healthcare story. The researcher should have to understand the health information first and

interpret all of the text in the visual art form. The duration for producing final product is quite

short and the important of final product’s quality is needed.

1.6 Significance of the StudyThe significance of this research is for promoting on how visual can help in interpreting

the healthcare information. This study also contributing on how important art by using visual as

the simple approach in delivering healthcare story. It is important to make a study,

documentation and producing visual materials that related to deliver the healthcare information

as a references for the benefit to people.

1.7 Conclusion

This chapter has covered the background of this study, the statement of the

research problem, the research objectives, the research questions, the operational

definitions, the limitation of this study and the significance of this study. The literature

review of the topics related to this study will be discussed in the next chapter.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction

In this chapter we will be focusing on the perspectives of other researchers, as well as

previous researches to be able to produce a more significant and concrete research. The

research that is being done is the contents of health literacy. Other than that, this research will

also explore the relationship between visuals and healthcare story itself.

2.1 Health literacy

Health literacy is often defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to

obtain, process and understanding basic health information and services needed to make

appropriate health decisions. (www.healthypeople.gov)

Osborne (2006) believes that health literacy extends beyond these definitions and is a

shared responsibility between patients (or anyone on the receiving end of health communication

and health providers (or anyone responsible for communicating health information).

2.2 Problem in understanding health information

Patients and their family members often struggle to understand health information.

According to Thompson (2003), discussing health topics with patients orally presents many

challenges. He added that verbal instruction are often complex, delivered rapidly and easily

forgotten in stressful situations. In addition, language barriers present comprehension problem.

Besides of the language barriers, Osborne (2006) stated that people have trouble

understanding health information because of learning challenges. There are literacy aspect,

age, disability, culture and emotion of the patients. Instead, people might be also are in different

learning characteristic. Strunk (1979) stated that how people absorb some information is

different from others; auditory learners, kinesthetic learner and visual leaners.

2.3 Visual material in healthcare setting

Visual materials help people remember information they hear. Schwarzberg

(2005) suggested that people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear,

30% of what they see and 70% of what they see and hear. He believed that the use of

visuals can help teach about something that can not be easily seen (example, female

internal anatomy). Visuals can illustrate a specific point and demonstrate steps to follow

to complete a task. In fact, visuals are an effective way to present real-life situations.

In order to do all of this, healthcare story must be simply, clearly and correctly

understood, even when the content is difficult or people have trouble in learning and

understanding information. Visuals can help in interpreting healthcare setting. They not

only are interesting and attractive to look at, but can reinforce the written or spoken

health message. Such example layout and design, pictograph and cartoons, pain scales

and visual tools, maps, genograms and other diagrams and form in interactive way.

(Osborne, 2006)

2.4 Conceptual Framework

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

Problem in understanding

health information

Visuals can help interpret the

healthcare story

Produce the visual materials that can help interpret the healthcare story

2.5 Conclusion

Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

This chapter explains the research design of this study, the method of data

collection, the population as well as the sample of this study and the data analysis of the

data. The data that has been analyzed will then be presented in the next chapter.

3.1 Research design

This study will be carried out using quantitative approach as well as quantitative

approach as well as qualitative approach. Under the quantitative approach, the

researcher will be conducting a survey research as to identify why people have trouble

in understanding health information.

3.2 Population and Sample

The target population of this study was a public people . The researcher will be

using simple random sampling because all individuals in the selected population have

an equal and independent chance to be selected for the sample.

3.3 Instrumentation

The instruments used are by the researcher are questionnaire, interviews and

document analysis.

3.3.1 Questionnare

3.3.2 Interview

Interviews are one of the methods used to gain qualitative information.

The researcher used interviews method as to collect and gain the relevant the

information for this study. The first method used by the researcher is by

interviews of doctor or healthcare administration and patients. The interviews

are questions designed to draw out the subjects’ responses on a topic of

interest. These respondents are free to answer in their own word rather than

have to choose from predetermined option, as in a survey in questionnaire for

example. The unstructured open-ended format permits a greater flexibility and

responsiveness to emerging issues for the participants.

3.3.3 Document analysis

This study also uses documents from others research and then a document

analysis are carried out. For the document analysis, the researcher would also get the

additional sources such as books, newspapers, the Internet and so on to supplement

the findings. All the data were analyzed to obtain the complete information and facts.

Books are one of the important sources used to collect all the

information for this study. There are several books that the researcher

has relied on to collect the information. The researcher also made use

of article from newspapers and journal to collect the relevant

information in order to complete this study. The Internet is also one of

the sources that the researcher has relied on to collect all the related

information for this study.Lots of web pages have been used to collect

and gain the relevant information for this study. Most of the information

that gained in the Internet is reliable and useful for the researcher.

3.4 The method of data collection

Distribute the questionnaire to the target sample

Interviews 6 respondents

Figure 1.2: Data collection flowchart

3.5 The method of data analysis

The researcher need to produce the visual material that can help interpret

healthcare story. There are several expenses involved with producing visual material for

healthcare.

Step 1: Planning the visual material by identify the resources needed, define the

target audience, goal and objectives, determine the concepts and messages,

identify the look and design.

Step 2: writing the visual material by recognize the content, literacy demand,

graphics and interaction.

Step 3: Revising the visual material

Step 4: Formating the visual material

Analyze data from the questionnaire

Produce the visual materials

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter has covered the research design, the sample population, the instrument,

the data collection and the data analysis. The next chapter will be discussing on the findings of

this study.

.

The Bibliography / Reference