Social marketing and student documentation of asthma care: A quasi-randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The study's objective was to determine the effectiveness of a social marketing intervention in influencing use of a targeted electronic medical record (EMR) template to document a standard asthma encounter. METHOD: This quasi-randomized controlled trial used intervention groups exposed to an educational workshop on EMR documentation with embedded social marketing messages aimed at persuading behavior. Conducted in July 2009 to June 2010, participants in the study included third-year medical students. The primary outcome was the number of participants using a target EMR template. (Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01043113). RESULTS: A total of 155 participants randomized across eight clusters. Following the workshop, intervention groups were more likely to use the target asthma template than the control group (PR 3.97, 95% CI=1.34-11.79). At slightly over 30 days following the workshop, the intervention group continued to use the asthma template more often than the control group (PR 2.40, 95% CI=1.10- 5.21). Stratifying by gender, intervention group females used the asthma template more after the interventions than control group females (PR 10.79, 95% CI=1.18-64.27). In follow-up at slightly over 30 days after the intervention, intervention group female participant asthma template use continued to be used more than control group females (PR 2.82, 95% CI=1.58-5.02). There were no significant differences in group use of asthma template use by intervention group males immediately after the intervention compared to control group males (PR 2.55, 95% CI=0.80-8.14) or similarly at slightly over 30 day follow-up (PR 2.18, 95% CI=0.74-6.42). CONCLUSION: Social marketing can effectively influence medical student use of EMR templates for clinical documentation in a controlled setting.