•  
  •  
 

Florida Public Health Review

Publication Date

December 2006

Abstract

This study tested the utility of the Be HeadSmart® Seniors! fall prevention intervention, HeadSmartz, a Cranium Challenge, in the promotion of safety improvement behavior change. It employed a quasi-experimental two-group design. Of the 106 individuals included in this study, 64 received the intervention and 42 only received the safety brochure. The Cranium Challenge is an interactive, visual, and auditory program based upon the popular board game CraniumTM. This game stimulated various parts of the participant’s brain verbally, through trivia questions and word games, visually, or by humming, whistling, or playing charades. The presentation included trivia questions created in a PowerPoint presentation that addressed facts about prevalence, incidence, and prevention of falls that can result in traumatic brain injury. Results indicated that participants who received the fall-prevention intervention reported a higher proportion of safety improvement behavior changes when compared to individuals who only received educational safety information. Logistic regression was used to test whether the proportion of safety improvement changes (H0: p intervention ≤ p comparison, α ≤ .05) was the same for intervention participants vs. persons in the comparison group. The two groups were found to have significant differences in the probability of safety improvement behavior changes (X2=3.877, df=1, p= 0.049). These results support previous research that use of a multicomponent change strategy can be successful in promoting behavior change, even in areas as complex and multi-factorial as fall prevention and intervention.

Download

Share

COinS