Yesterday I watched Paul Watson’s documentary “Rain in My Heart”. Toni, a 27 year old alcoholic from Medway in Sheffield says “If I’m not the best advertisement for why not to drink then I don’t know what is.” He’s right, I’ve never seen something that has so powerfully portrayed the negative medical effects of alcohol. Two of the film’s four characters die during the making of the film.
The fantastic clinical care of the NHS is steadfast throughout the documentary, but is not shown to be supported by social services or psychiatric care. The characters are intent on destroying themselves through drink. Watson documents this destruction, while reflecting on his role as a film maker. He hopes that the value of the film as a deterrent will outweigh any potential interventions that he could have made while making the film.
I wonder who this film would work best as a deterrent for, and what would make them watch it? We need to find ways of integrating this type of work into the places/systems in which they can be most effective. What are the ethical implications of hospital staff having tools like this on hand, and would patients watch something like this if it was offered to them?
Aug 20th, Gayle said:
Great question about having a video as a tool in a hospital. I am doing research on how visual tools could be used in a persons problem solving, reasoning and decision making stages of cognitive processes, but obviously the most pertinent question is if someone would be interested in the visual tool in the first place! I realise you have addressed this question too – possibly the answer lies within the cognitive processes a person used for attention, learning and memory? And the effectiveness of the tool may depend on where in the journies people watch on TV they see themselves…?
Aug 20th, Ivo said:
This sounds like very interesting research. I think the questions you raise are the right ones. There’s a man called Ian Hutchinson who does research in this area, he’s a facial reconstruction surgeon and tries to put kids of binge drinking by showing them the effects of drinking on people’s faces:
“Saving Faces and the Department of Health are collaborating on a study to investigate whether talks by surgeons at schools highlighting the consequences of binge drinking, act as an effective deterrent. ”
Its interesting work but I think it would be interesting to experiment with these tools being actively used as part of the health service itself. Any other ideas for how to test this that you have would be most welcome.
Aug 26th, Andrew Brown said:
It will be interesting to see what the outcome of the Saving Faces work is. Previous examples of shock tactics in drug education, what NICE recently described as “vivid communications”, doesn’t seem particularly strong.
Also worth a look is this write up of the original research that took us away from trying to use horror to change young people’s behaviour around drugs.
I don’t know if the Saving Faces approach is more nuanced than this previous work, but unless it is I fear it won’t be as effective as it should be.
Aug 28th, Ivo said:
I think you’re right, it is generally shock tactics and it seems the problems with this is that its quite easy to separate yourself from this type of imagery. Particularly when you’re viewing it in a setting that is far removed from the situation in which you will make the decision that the imagery trying to effect.
I think it would be interesting if this type of information be delivered as close as possible to the point at which the bad decisions are made. It seems to work well in the case of tobacco warnings though the effects seem hard to measure:
“This study suggests that more prominent health warnings are associated with greater levels of awareness and perceived effectiveness among smokers.”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/62219.php