RESUMEN

A dramatic increase in firework-related blast injuries to the hand and upper extremity resulted in record-setting numbers at our institution over the July 4, 2018, holiday. This led our hand and upper extremity department to create a public service announcement (PSA) campaign regarding firework safety and injury prevention. This PSA was broadcast in advance of the next July 4 holiday via several media platforms including television, radio, and the internet. The following year only 4 patients required surgery for firework-related blast injuries to the hand and upper extremity over the same 10-day period, including the weekends before and after the July 4, 2019, holiday. This represented a considerable reduction compared with the 14 patients seen within the same time frame in 2018. The purpose of this article was to outline the process and report the impact of creating and disseminating a public service announcement for firework-related blast injury prevention.

Asunto(s)

Traumatismos por Explosión , Traumatismos de la Mano , Procedimientos de Cirugía Plástica , Traumatismos por Explosión/prevención & control , Traumatismos por Explosión/cirugía , Explosiones/prevención & control , Mano/cirugía , Traumatismos de la Mano/cirugía , Humanos

RESUMEN

To encourage people to behave in a more socially responsible or healthy way, many public service announcements (PSAs) dramatically illustrate the dire consequences of undesirable social or health behaviors. However, although informative, such negatively-framed PSAs can generate unintended consequences (e.g., a bad mood, low message acceptance). In this research, we investigated two approaches to improve the effectiveness of negatively-framed PSAs: (1) mood elevation and (2) self-affirmation. Using three studies with large samples of consumers, we found that adding mood-elevating or self-affirming elements to a negative PSA can be an effective way to enhance message acceptance. This is especially the case for recipients currently engaging (vs. not engaging) in the undesirable behaviors. Additionally, we designed mood elevation methods that can be implemented in PSAs in practice.