The Evaluation of a TV API Featured by a Local Chinese AIDS Patient in Hong Kong

Tammy P.C. Chan¹, Joseph T.F. Lau¹, S.S. Lee² , Jacky C.K. Cheung¹, M.W. Chan¹

1: Centre for Clinical Trials and Epidemiological Research, Chinese University of Hong Kong
2: Department of Health, Government of Hong Kong

INTRODUCTION

Evaluation of perceived effects and acceptance of a television announcement for public interest (TV API or PSA [public service announcement]) communicated by an AIDS patient for AIDS prevention in the local context of Hong Kong is important. It is because (1) TV APIs are a prominent and efficient means used for raising public awareness (Gunter et al. 1993); and (2) whereas studies tend to underline the effectiveness of TV API communicated by persons with HIV/AIDS (e.g., Magic Johnson, [Pollock 1994; Tesoriero et al. 1995]), no study has conducted such analysis in Hong Kong. The time for such a study came when the Government of Hong Kong issued a TV API communicated by an AIDS patient in 1995.

The TV API communicated by an AIDS patient

The TV API, commonly known as J.J.'s API, was communicated by an AIDS patient, called J.J. He was a male disc jockey, aged 35, and was not a celebrity prior to presenting the API. He was one of the two late AIDS patients who had disclosed their identities in Hong Kong. His API was a black-and-white monologue conveying messages that (1) daily activities could not make one infected with HIV; (2) one should reduce promiscuity and use condoms in order to prevent AIDS; (3) one should care for and should not discriminate against persons with AIDS (PWAs). The whole monologue engendered three versions of the API, each lasting from 30 seconds to 1 minutes. They were alternately shown on television from April 1995 to January 1996. This was the first API in Hong Kong that employed a PWA as a communicator although there had been more than twenty TV APIs made in the previous decade. These prior APIs used various approaches to communicate themes on AIDS prevention, including employing movie stars as communicators.

OBJECTIVES

Public acceptance and evaluation of J.J.'s API as compared with other APIs recalled comprise the research question of the present study. In further detail, this study aims at revealing the Hong Kong public's: (1) perceived effects of J.J.'s API on AIDS prevention and awareness, (2) acceptance and perceptions of its effects as compared with other APIs recalled, and (3) acceptance of J.J.'s API and APIs communicated by PWAs in general.

METHODS

By using telephone numbers randomly drawn in residential telephone directories, a telephone survey successfully interviewed 1,275 residents aged 18 to 60 years. It randomly selected a respondent in a household by interviewing the one in the age range whose past birthday was closest to the date of the interview. The interviews took place in evenings from November 29 to December 29, 1995. The survey had a response rate of 51.6%. The sample was representative of the adult population of Hong Kong (see the profile in the Appendix).

Using a structured questionnaire, a survey interview on average required 10 minutes to complete. The questionnaire contained questions regarding viewing behavior, perceived impacts and effectiveness of J.J.'s API and other TV APIs recallable, evaluation of various approaches of APIs, and some background information.

RESULTS

Most of the public regarded J.J.'s API as having positive effects on AIDS prevention and relatively few of them regarded it as having a negative effect. The highly endorsed positive effects included increasing the individual's concern for AIDS (81.2%), acceptance of PWAs (67.7%), and use of condoms (56.8%) (see Table 1). The lowly perceived negative effect was the inducing of fear about contact with PWAs (21.5%). Relatively low proportions of respondents found J.J.'s API to reduce their numbers of sex partners (33.5%) and to make them test blood for detecting HIV infection (26.9%). This might be because of their low likelihood to have multiple sexual partners and low perceived risk for AIDS (0.5%).

J.J.'s APIs fared significantly better than other recalled APIs in terms of public acceptance and evaluation. Specifically, more of the public found J.J.'s message to be clear (86.4% vs. 58.1%) and good for continual showing on television (79.2% vs. 71.4%) than those perceiving other APIs on average (see Table 2). Furthermore, more of the public perceived J.J.'s message as clear than those perceiving the two most frequently recalled APIs. More than half (60.5%) of the public perceived J.J.'s API to have a greater effect than other APIs.

Public acceptance of J.J.'s API and APIs communicated by PWAs was evident. A majority of the public (74.7%) found J.J.'s API to be suitable for those aged 19 to 45 years, who, presumably were sexually active and targets of J.J.'s API. Moreover, many (73.4%) regarded the frequency of its displays on television as just right (see Table 3). Many (48. 1 %) of the public regarded J.J.'s API as suitable for both men and women. The proportion of the public finding AIDS patients to be the most effective communicator of APIs was the greatest (48. 1 %) among the 4 other categories of people (entertainment stars, medical staff, ordinary people, and politicians). Furthermore, the proportion of the public finding that the patient-self-presentation approach is most effective was highest (30.7%) among four other approaches featuring daily life, cartoon, warning, and medical knowledge.

CONCLUSION

Public acceptance and endorsement of positive effects of J.J.'s API for AIDS prevention are obvious. In both absolute and relative terms, J.J.'s API scored highly on public evaluation. Hence, J.J.'s API appears to be most effective in increasing public concern for AIDS and acceptance of PWAs. Its message was clear and its presentation was appropriate. Using AIDS patients as communicators and presenting their own situation tends to be the most favorable approach appealing to the public. Whereas other studies have espoused the effectiveness of PWAs as communicators for AIDS prevention, the present study supports the generalization of this proposition to the Chinese society of Hong Kong.

Table 1: Perceived effects of J.J.'s API

Table 2: Comparative effects perceived and acceptance of J.J.'s API and other APIs

*: significantly different between from that of J.J.'s API by Wilcoxon's signed rank test

Table 3: Acceptance of APIs communicated by AIDS patients

Appendix: Sample profile