Providing effective health education is a core role for health practitioners. This review looked at the effectiveness of face-to-face delivered tailored health messages on patient behaviour and applications for practice.

Medline, Embase, Psycinfo and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials(CENTRAL) and reference lists of related systematic reviews  were  searched.  Randomised controlled trials (RCT) involving health education that promoted health behaviour change, health education based on evidence-based behaviour change model, use of tailored messages based on participant assessment and delivered face-to-face and were writen in English  were included.

Six RCTs  met the inclusion criteria.  All of the studies reported positive changes in participants’ health behaviour with varying degrees of effect size and duration. A meta-analysis of the available data also confirmed an overall positive effect of tailored messaging on participants’ health behaviour.

They concluded:-

The systematic review and the meta-analysis demonstrate a significant and positive effective of face-to-face tailored messaging upon participants’ health behaviours.

Wanyonyi KL, Themessl-Huber M, Humphris G, Freeman R. A systematic review and meta-analysis of face-to-face communication of tailored health messages: Implications for practice. Patient Educ Couns. 2011 Mar 10. [Epub ahead of print]PubMed PMID: 21397434.