Measuring the impact of a public awareness campaign to increase Welfare Power of Attorney registrations in Scotland.

Objective: to measure the impact of the 'My Power of Attorney' media campaign on the number of new power of attorney (POA) registrations in Scotland.

Setting: POA registrations in Scotland processed by the Office of the Public Guardian during January 2010 to June 2015.

Methods: multilevel Poisson models for POA registrations nested by council and annual quarter were run using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, adjusting for time, campaign (variable ranging between 0 and 5 dependent on intensity of campaign measured by the number of media platforms received) and offset term mid-year population estimate for those aged 25 years+/65 years+.

Results: POA registrations saw a reduction between 2010 and 2011 but overall, increased between 2010 and 2015. POA registrations rose by 33.3% in Glasgow City between 2013 and 2014, when the campaign began, while the rest of Scotland saw a rise of 17.3%. When the data were modelled, Relative Risk (RR) of a POA registration increased with increasing intensity of campaign, so that in an area in receipt of the full campaign was RR = 1.31 (1.28, 1.34) that of an area with no campaign. Between council variation persisted after adjustment for campaign (Variance = 0.041 (0.011)).

Conclusions: during the period of the campaign, area-level increases in POA registrations were observed associated with the 'My Power of Attorney' timing and location, in an approximate dose-response relationship with campaign intensity, suggesting that this is likely to be due to the campaign that began in Glasgow City.