School-Based Stroke Education Through On-Demand E-learning During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Itoigawa Stroke Awareness Campaign

Masahito Katsuki; Junko Kawahara; Hiroyuki Senda; Chinami Yamagishi; Satoshi Mizusawa; Yasuhide Ueki; Shin Kawamura; Kenta Kashiwagi; Akihito Koh; Rie Hashiba; Atsuko Ono; Yuki Watabe; Kazuhiro Ando; Bumpei Kikuchi; Shinya Yamashita; Fuminori Yamagishi

doi:10.7759/cureus.37380

School-Based Stroke Education Through On-Demand E-learning During Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Itoigawa Stroke Awareness Campaign

Cureus. 2023 Apr 10;15(4):e37380. doi: 10.7759/cureus.37380. eCollection 2023 Apr.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Itoigawa General Hospital, Itoigawa, JPN.
² Department of Health Promotion, Itoigawa City Servant Service, Itoigawa, JPN.
³ Department of Fire, Itoigawa City Servant Service, Itoigawa, JPN.
⁴ Board of Education, Itoigawa City Servant Service, Itoigawa, JPN.
⁵ Department of Neurology, Itoigawa General Hospital, Itoigawa, JPN.
⁶ Department of Neurosurgery, Niigata Prefectural Central Hospital, Joetsu, JPN.
⁷ Department of Surgery, Itoigawa General Hospital, Itoigawa, JPN.

Abstract

Introduction Raising stroke awareness is important to shorten the interval from onset to consultation. We performed a school-based stroke education by on-demand e-learning during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Methods We performed on-demand e-learning and distributed the online- and paper-based manga about stroke for students and parental guardians in August 2021. We carried out this in a manner similar to the prior effective online stroke awareness initiatives in Japan. An online post-educational survey in October 2021 was conducted to evaluate the awareness effects by asking participants about their knowledge. We also investigated the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at the discharge of stroke patients who were treated in our hospital during the before- and after-campaign periods, respectively. Results We distributed the paper-based manga and asked to work on this campaign to all 2,429 students (1,545 elementary school and 884 junior high school students) who lived in Itoigawa. We acquired 261 (10.7%) online responses from the students and 211 (8.7%) responses from their parental guardians. The number of students who chose all correct answers in the survey significantly increased after the campaign (205/261, 78.5%) compared to that before the campaign (135/261, 51.7%) and those of parental guardians showed similar trends (before campaign 93/211, 44.1%; after campaign 198/211, 93.8%). We investigated 282 stroke patients (90 patients before and 192 patients after-campaign period), and their mRS at discharge after-campaign seemed to be improved. Conclusion Only 10.7% of students and 8.7% of the parental guardians worked on the online survey. However, the number of those who chose correct answers about stroke increased after the campaign. After this campaign, the mRS of stroke patients at discharge improved although it was unclear if this is a direct result of this activity.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; awareness; coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19); digital transformation (dx); effects of social media; efficient medicine; stroke.