Engaging the Community

The School recruited 71 children in 2014 for a nine-month study. Half the children were sent to four adventure-based physical training day camps, involving rope course, rock climbing, archery and group competitive games, over six months. The remaining children attended extra-curricular activities such as health talks, museum and theme park visits, and playing computer games. 

Results after nine months of observation showed that those who took part in adventure-based training reported higher levels of physical activity by 96 percent. Confidence in physical exercises increased by 23 percent. Quality of life has increased by 7 percent.  

Auntie Angel Companion Program is a 3-year Knowledge Exchange project which started in September 2013. We collaborated with Tsing Yi Integrated Service Centre (HKSKH MacLehose Centre) and Kwong Wah Hospital Obstetric Department, to set up social networking for first-time parent, to provide physical and psychosocial support. We networked and matched the first-time parents with an experienced auntie and a nursing student in order to provide continuous support and trainings throughout the period.

Hong Kong is a predominantly Chinese society, but has a sizeable South Asian ethnic minority (EM) community, with more than 60 000 South Asian EM people living here. Evidence showed that South Asian were at higher risk of Type II diabetes due to high carbohydrate content and sedentary lifestyles.   

This project aims at providing educational talks to enhance the awareness of diabetic prevention in Pakistani women.  Through the assessments and interactions with them, we understood that they were generally knowledge deficit about diabetes symptoms, complications and the association between diabetes and obesity.  Also, the social norms and traditions were some of the barriers for them to maintain healthy diet and regular physical exercise.  Therefore, the educational talks delivered were culturally specific so as to enhance their awareness and self-management skills of diabetes.  

The project aims to develop an educational website to promote the importance of having a love relationship with mutual respect and healthy communications by using up-to-date research evidence.  With the collaboration with Technology-Enriched Learning Initiative (TELI) team in HKU, the project was successfully conducted.  The website was created in a style that is targeting at adolescents and emerging adults.  It provided a comprehensive educational platform for the targets to learn and get self-help materials on healthy, unhealthy and abusive relationships.  It included texts, 10 stories and high quality movies.  Also, there was an assessment page for providing a safe and comfort space for the emerging adults to assess whether they are in healthy, unhealthy or abusive relationships.

Little information about adverse health effects of emerging tobacco products such as shisha (aka hookah or waterpipe) and heat-not-burn (HNB) tobacco is available, although the products have become popular amongst Hong Kong young people. Therefore, we aimed to promote health information on the emerging tobacco products to Hong Kong university students using a set of story-based scenarios (the scenarios were developed, based on scientific evidence). Through interesting stories (e.g. solving mystery cases by a detective), the students could learn about information such as the harmful effects of shisha smoking, the mechanism of shisha device, as well as toxicants produced during the smoking process. By notifying young people the hazard of these tobacco products, it is expected that they will be able to protect themselves from the harms of these tobacco products, and minimise their intention to engage in such health damaging activities. By collaborating with the student affair offices, university health service, and academic departments in five local universities, the videos were disseminated to the university students. Over 6,000 students across universities in Hong Kong voluntarily watched our videos. The project was carried out successfully as the feedback we received from the students is incredibly positive. Most importantly, 95% of the students who watched the videos reported that they obtained new knowledge from the videos. The videos are available at https://nursing.hku.hk/smokefree/

Website:

Poster:

Episode 1: Shisha smoking

 

Episode 2: Heat-not-burn tobacco

 

In response to the increasing prevalence of female smokers in Hong Kong, the School has established the first hotline to provide a gender-specific smoking cessation programme to smokers since 2006.  In 2018, the project team adapted this gender-specific programme into a smartphone App, with an aim of reaching out to more female smokers.  This App provides tailored smoking cessation information according to the smokers’ stage of readiness to quit.  Pop-up messages about the hazardous effects of smoking regularly appear in smokers’ smartphones to serve as reminders for smoking cessation. Information on stress management and weight control is also provided to correct smokers’ misconceptions towards smoking.  Female smokers who require more counseling can also contact a smoking cessation hotline via the App.  The App is available for both Android and IOS devices.  Through developing this App, it is expected that this gender-specific smoking cessation programme can be delivered to more female smokers, contributing to building a smoke-free Hong Kong. 

Three years after the launch of the Breastfeeding GPS app, the Breastfeeding Friendly Community Initiative (BFCI) has taken further steps in expanding its reach to both global and mainland China audiences. Building upon its existing Facebook page and Instagram presence, BFCI introduced a new YouTube channel and website, which feature research-supported, bilingual content in the form of bite-sized videos and infographics. The YouTube channel and website have successfully drawn viewers from various regions, including Taiwan, the UK, US, Australia, and Canada. The website has also seen a growing number of visitors from China. 

To further globalise the project, the BFCI team plans to participate in World Breastfeeding Week 2023 and is actively working to promote the app in mainland China through WeChat and partnerships.  

Exercises can aid the smoking cessation process through helping to relieve nicotine withdrawal symptoms, however, the practice of using exercise to quit is uncommon amongst smokers partly due to the busy living lifestyle. Based on the recent evidence of the School's randomized controlled trial, this project produced educational videos to promote the short-bout exercise on smoking cessation. The videos focused on promoting handgrip exercise, which is a relatively simple exercise that can be performed anytime anywhere, making it ideally suited for the lifestyle of Hong Kong smokers.

Please refer to the Youtube videos:

An online software application, the Hong Kong University Diabetes Risk Score (HKU DRS) App, was developed in 2014 as a diabetic risk calculator for the general population together with an individualized health education which promotes healthy lifestyles to prevent diabetes. This free-of-charge app is available for both Android and IOS devices. It can be downloaded from Google Play or App Store. 

Depression and anxiety are common in both patients with psychosis and their caregivers. These adverse conditions are linked with poor engagement in treatment services and adverse impact on the cognitive and psychosocial functioning, resulting in poor treatment outcomes for the patients, and impaired quality of life for both patients and their caregivers. The project aimed to help psychosis patients and their caregivers adjust stress and depression by teaching them some basic mindfulness skills through workshops, including mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful eating and mindful stretching.

During January to July 2018, a total of seven workshops were conducted in five Non-government Organizations (NGOs) in four districts in Hong Kong. A total of 170 participants (patients with psychosis and caregivers) attended these workshops and had a taste of mindfulness basic skills. About 84% participants rated the quality of the workshop as good or excellent. About 65% participants believed that they learned much from the workshop. Over 90% participants agreed that the workshop brought psychological benefits for them, and over 810% showed interests in self-practicing after the workshop.

This project equipped the patients and caregivers in community with some knowledge of dealing with negative emotions. The guided mindfulness practice during the workshop gave the participants a taste of relax and benefited them in psychological well-being.

Between 40–50% of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience anxiety and depression, associated with impaired physical function, high care dependency and mortality. This ‘Mindfulness Yoga for Parkinson’s Disease’ (MY-PD) webpage aims to enhance psychological well-being and health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) of the PD community, and also to promote the public awareness of mindfulness yoga for chronic illness management. By collaborating with the Hong Kong Parkinson’s Disease Foundation (HKPDF), Hong Kong Parkinson’s Disease Association (HKPDA) and Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation (HKSR), the webpage has been disseminated successfully via a combination of promotional strategies including newsletters and webinars, and reached over 1660 patients with PD and their caregivers, healthcare professionals and laypersons in the community. 166 patients with PD participated in the online course, and the series of guided mindfulness yoga videos has reached a view count of 3269 times during the project period. Results indicate that the short online course of mindfulness yoga was effective in alleviating psychological distress and improving HRQOL among patients with PD. Future project should adopt a more interactive tele-medicine approach to enhance the implementation and uptake of sustained mindfulness yoga practice for wellness promotion. The webpage is accessible at https://nursing.hku.hk/yoga/
 

This project aims to promote quitting and reduction to female smokers through training female youth as smoking cessation and reduction ambassadors (SCRAs). The funding of project is supported by the Health Care Promotion Fund, Food and Health Bureau, Hong Kong SAR. We designed a leaflet to show common and women-specific health hazard of smoking and distributed to female youth via the Hong Kong Girl Guides Association. We also have conducted training to over 150 female youth SCRAs, equipped them with knowledge of smoking cessation and skills of women-specific smoking cessation counselling. Some of the SCRAs proactively practiced the knowledge and skills they gained from the training by giving support and brief smoking cessation advice to female smokers to help them quit smoking. 

Mental health problems are becoming more prevalent among Hong Kong young people.  This project aimed to implement adventure-based training with various experiential learning activities and health education talks to reduce depressive symptoms and promote self-esteem and resilience among secondary school students.  From late 2018 to early 2019, experiential learning activities were conducted for 116 junior secondary school students.  In an adventure-based camp, they engaged in various well designed activities, such as team building games, walk in darkness, and rope climbing.  Health education talks were also delivered, which covered the topics of understanding the importance of psycho-social well-being; recognising the importance of healthy lifestyles; instilling positive values and attitudes towards life, understanding stress and depression; and recognising the importance of communication with others.  Participants learnt some psychosocial skills, such as emotional expression; problem-solving skills; relaxation exercises; strategies to cope with stress; ways to prevent depression; and communication and interpersonal skills.  Through the experiential learning activities, the students became more confident, and it was a way to build resilience and raise the awareness of the importance of having positive mental well-being for secondary school students.

High salt intake is associated with high blood pressure. The World Health Organization recommends a daily salt intake of less than 5g. However, the average salt intake among the Hong Kong population far exceeded such limit. Reduction of salt intake as a means to population control of hypertension has been drawing increasing attention in Hong Kong. 
This project collaborates with elderly community centres to deliver health talks, with a view to raising awareness towards sodium intake for the older people. The talks aim to raise the health literacy for low salt intake, including identifying hidden salt in daily consumption and understanding how to read nutrition labels to check the amount of sodium in food. Also, different ways to enhance tastes of food without using salt are discussed. Compared with traditional health talks, a food tasting section and interactive games are incorporated to make the talks more interesting. 
In 2016/2017, the talks benefited more than 300 elderly. The health literacy related to low salt consumption among the participants, as assessed by a validated questionnaire, was found to be higher than those without attending the talks.

Since 2009, the School has been a co-organiser of the “Quit to Win” Smoke-free Community Campaign, to encourage and recruit more smokers to kick the habit. The Campaign also provided training workshops for over 300 staff members or volunteers of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and secondary or university students to train as smoking cessation ambassadors to help smokers in the community to quit smoking.  The Campaign led by the Hong Kong Council of Smoking and Health (COSH) is mixed with the features includes media promotion, smoking cessation counselling and scientific research. 

Patients with heart attack need a timely medical treatment, and early presentation in hospital is essential to reduce morbidity and mortality. However, pre-hospital delay of heart attack is common globally. Hong Kong, a rapidly ageing Chinese population, is not an exception. Health seeking behaviors have been shown to be associated with knowledge of heart attack symptoms. This project aims to raise the knowledge level on heart attack symptoms and appropriate health seeking behavior for older people in Hong Kong by disseminating health education through video. A 6-min video is shown at the 18 Elderly Health Centres operated by the Department of Health in 2017/18 to educate the older people and their family caregiver on the topic. In long term, it is expected to reduce pre-hospital delay if the older people encounter heart attack in future.  

 

The project collaborates with the AKA LinkAge Centre to organize series of health promotion topics for the Aberdeen community such as medication management at home for the elders, child development and health screening and exercise for women. Representatives from the School initiate health activities, such as health assessment, talk, discussion, exercise or game, Q&A session and health consultation, to raise the awareness on healthcare and to provide local support to the community.  Health professionals and recovered patients are also invited to be the guest speakers of seminars, to present on broad spectrum of health topics.  

 

Engaging in regular exercise is beneficial for a range of physical and psychological well-being outcomes. Nonetheless, there is growing concern about declining levels of physical activity among childhood cancer survivors. The project aims at delivering a tailor-made exercise programme to reduce cancer-related fatigue and depressive symptoms, and enhance self-esteem and quality of life among childhood cancer survivors.
A total of fifty-four Hong Kong Chinese childhood cancer survivors participated in a tailor-made exercise programme for 6 months, in which they engaged in a specific combination of physical exercises (i.e. running, rope skipping, playing badminton, basketball and football) that suits the participants’ individual needs and preference at least twice a week and for about 60 minutes each.  Additionally, five educational talks were delivered to the participants and their parents to enhance their awareness of the importance of regular physical activity.  Results showed that the participants reported they had reduced levels of fatigue and depressive symptoms, and enhanced levels of self-esteem and quality of life.

 

Alcohol drinking is the third leading risk factor for preventable disease and the leading cause of injury death, and psychosocial and behavioral problems in adolescents.  The World Health Organization has called for urgent actions against the growing epidemic of underage drinking. 
Many adolescents in Hong Kong are unaware of passive drinking and forced drinking.  This project aimed to raise their awareness on these important health topics.  This project produced and showed informative and attractive videos in seminars, YouTube and Facebook regarding the negative consequences of passive drinking and forced drinking.  Adolescents would be more capable of avoiding passive drinking and forced drinking, and would not inflict such harm on others.  

“The consequences of  passive drinking 被動酒害害處多”


“Strategies to handle forced drinking 被逼飲酒的處理方法”

Smoking prevalence remains high in the correctional institutions. Many smokers in the Correctional Services Department are unaware of smoking hazards. This project aimed to improve the knowledge of persons in custody (PICs) on smoking and health and enhance their awareness on health hazards of smoking. The project produced and delivered educational videos in 4 correctional institutions in Hong Kong, including Stanley Prison, Lo Wu Correctional Institution, Tai Lam Correctional Institution, and Tong Fuk Correctional Institution. Educational videos cover topics on active smoking, second- and third-hand smoking, quitting benefits, and effective cessation methods. PICs would be more capable of smoking cessation knowledge and skills. The proposed project increased PICs’ exposure to health information, raised their awareness, and promoted smoke-free messages in correctional institutions.

Below is the captured shots of the videos