An Interactive Video Educational Tool Does Not Improve the Quality of Bowel Preparation for Colonoscopy: A Randomized Controlled Study

Background/Aims Inadequate bowel preparation leads to poor outcomes in colonoscopy. Prior investigations have demonstrated improved bowel preparation with pre-procedural educational videos. We aimed to determine whether an interactive, online educational video could improve bowel preparation scores in an outpatient population. Methods We performed a prospective, endoscopist-blinded, randomized controlled trial at our hospital-based outpatient endoscopy center. Eligible patients were randomized to two groups. Both groups received standard verbal and written instructions, while the intervention group also received access to an interactive, online video. The primary outcome was improvement in the bowel preparation scores graded using the Boston bowel prep score (BBPS). Secondary outcomes included adenoma detection rate, total number of polyps detected, patient satisfaction, pre-procedure anxiety, and complication rates. Results The difference in BBPS in the intervention group (8) compared to the control group (7.6) did not meet statistical significance in our primary outcome of improvement in BBPS ( p = 0.076). However, on subgroup analysis, there was a statistically significant improvement in BBPS in the intervention group among African Americans ( p = 0.007) and patients older than 65 ( p = 0.026). Those in the intervention arm rated pre-procedural materials “very easy” to understand significantly more often than in the control arm ( p = 0.018). Conclusions Use of an interactive, online educational video for bowel preparation did not lead to improvement in overall BBPS. However, among patients at higher risk for inadequate bowel preparation, such as African Americans and elderly patients, there may be a benefit.