Current status of health promotion services in Indiana hospitals

Abstract

To date, a state wide assessment of hospital health promotion does not exist in Indiana. The purpose of this study was to analyze the current status of health promotion services in Indiana Hospitals based upon hospital size and location. A survey was sent to all hospitals in the state of Indiana listed in the American Hospital Association 1994 Guide and Directory of Indiana General and Special Hospitals.The first hypothesis tested in this study was the relationship between the number of health promotion services offered and hospital size. This hypothesis was studied utilizing analysis of variance. A Tukey test was also done to determine significant differences between size of hospitals. At the .05 level, five services were found to be significant. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected. If the alpha is dropped to .01 to guard against Type I error, only 2 services are found to be significant, smoking and hypertension.The second hypothesis tested the relationship between the number of health promotion services offered in urban versus rural hospitals. This hypothesis was analyzed utilizing T-tests. Only hypertension was significant at the .05 level. Therefore, the null was rejected. However, due to the number of tests performed the Type I error is inflated beyond the .05 level. The remaining survey questions were analyzed using descriptive analysis. In addition to the hypotheses, this study sought to clarify the goal of services, types of services offered, responsibility for providing services, and to whom services are targeted.