Pretravel Health Advice Among Australians Returning From Bali, Indonesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol

Chloe A Thomson; Robyn A Gibbs; Jane S Heyworth; Carolien Giele; Martin J Firth; Paul V Effler

doi:10.2196/resprot.6549

Pretravel Health Advice Among Australians Returning From Bali, Indonesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol

JMIR Res Protoc. 2016 Dec 7;5(4):e236. doi: 10.2196/resprot.6549.

Authors

Chloe A Thomson^{1

2}, Robyn A Gibbs², Jane S Heyworth¹, Carolien Giele², Martin J Firth³, Paul V Effler^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
² Communicable Disease Control Directorate, Department of Health, Western Australian Government, Perth, Australia.
³ Centre for Applied Statistics, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
⁴ School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.

Abstract

Background: The effect of pretravel health advice (PTHA) on travel-related illness rates is poorly understood, and to date there are no published randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of PTHA outcomes.

Objective: This study aims to determine the effect of an online PTHA intervention on travel-related illness rates in Western Australians visiting Bali, Indonesia.

Methods: Western Australian travelers to Bali will be recruited online before departure and will be randomly allocated to an intervention or control group by computer algorithm. The intervention in this study is a short animated video, with accompanying text, containing PTHA relevant to Bali. An online posttravel survey will be administered to all participants within two weeks of their return from Bali. The primary outcome is the difference in self-reported travel-related illness rates between control and intervention groups. Secondary outcomes include the difference in risk prevention behaviors and health risk knowledge between the control and intervention groups. Further secondary outcomes include whether individuals in the control group who sought external PTHA differ from those who did not with respect to risk prevention behaviors, health risk knowledge, and health risk perception, as well as the rate of self-reported travel-related illness.

Results: The study began recruitment in September 2016 and will conclude in September 2017. Data analysis will take place in late 2017, with results disseminated via peer-reviewed journals in early 2018.

Conclusions: This will be the first randomized controlled trial to examine the effect of a novel PTHA intervention upon travel-related illness. In addition, this study builds upon the limited existing data on the effectiveness of PTHA on travel-related illness.

Clinicaltrial: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR): ACTRN12615001230549; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=369567 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6m0G7xJg1).

Keywords: clinical trial; diarrhea; social media; travel; travel medicine; tropical medicine.

©Chloe Thomson, Robyn A Gibbs, Jane S Heyworth, Carolien Giele, Martin J Firth, Paul V Effler. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 07.12.2016.