Cargando…

Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered widespread fear and skepticism about recommended risk-reducing behaviors including vaccination. Health agencies are faced with the need to communicate to the public in ways that both provide reassurance and promote risk-reducing behaviors. Communicati...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Scharnetzki, Elizabeth, Waterston, Leo, Scherer, Aaron M, Thorpe, Alistair, Fagerlin, Angela, Han, Paul K J
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10411423/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37379364
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/41959
_version_ 1785086662890487808
author Scharnetzki, Elizabeth
Waterston, Leo
Scherer, Aaron M
Thorpe, Alistair
Fagerlin, Angela
Han, Paul K J
author_facet Scharnetzki, Elizabeth
Waterston, Leo
Scherer, Aaron M
Thorpe, Alistair
Fagerlin, Angela
Han, Paul K J
author_sort Scharnetzki, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered widespread fear and skepticism about recommended risk-reducing behaviors including vaccination. Health agencies are faced with the need to communicate to the public in ways that both provide reassurance and promote risk-reducing behaviors. Communication strategies that promote prosocial (PS) values and hope are being widely used; however, the existing research on the persuasiveness of these strategies has offered mixed evidence. There is also very little research examining the comparative effectiveness of PS and hope-promoting (HP) strategies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of PS and HP messages in reassuring the public and motivating COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors. METHODS: A web-based factorial experiment was conducted in which a diverse sample of the US public was randomized to read messages which adapted existing COVID-19 information from a public website produced by a state government public health department to include alternative framing language: PS, HP, or no additional framing (control). Participants then completed surveys measuring COVID-19 worry and intentions for COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors and vaccination. RESULTS: COVID-19 worry was unexpectedly higher in the HP than in the control and PS conditions. Intentions for COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors did not differ between groups; however, intentions for COVID-19 vaccination were higher in the HP than in the control condition, and this effect was mediated by COVID-19 worry. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that HP communication strategies may be more effective than PS strategies in motivating risk-reducing behaviors in some contexts but with the paradoxical cost of promoting worry.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10411423
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher JMIR Publications
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-104114232023-08-10 Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study Scharnetzki, Elizabeth Waterston, Leo Scherer, Aaron M Thorpe, Alistair Fagerlin, Angela Han, Paul K J JMIR Form Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered widespread fear and skepticism about recommended risk-reducing behaviors including vaccination. Health agencies are faced with the need to communicate to the public in ways that both provide reassurance and promote risk-reducing behaviors. Communication strategies that promote prosocial (PS) values and hope are being widely used; however, the existing research on the persuasiveness of these strategies has offered mixed evidence. There is also very little research examining the comparative effectiveness of PS and hope-promoting (HP) strategies. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of PS and HP messages in reassuring the public and motivating COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors. METHODS: A web-based factorial experiment was conducted in which a diverse sample of the US public was randomized to read messages which adapted existing COVID-19 information from a public website produced by a state government public health department to include alternative framing language: PS, HP, or no additional framing (control). Participants then completed surveys measuring COVID-19 worry and intentions for COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors and vaccination. RESULTS: COVID-19 worry was unexpectedly higher in the HP than in the control and PS conditions. Intentions for COVID-19 risk–reducing behaviors did not differ between groups; however, intentions for COVID-19 vaccination were higher in the HP than in the control condition, and this effect was mediated by COVID-19 worry. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that HP communication strategies may be more effective than PS strategies in motivating risk-reducing behaviors in some contexts but with the paradoxical cost of promoting worry. JMIR Publications 2023-08-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10411423/ /pubmed/37379364 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/41959 Text en ©Elizabeth Scharnetzki, Leo Waterston, Aaron M Scherer, Alistair Thorpe, Angela Fagerlin, Paul K J Han. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 01.08.2023. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Scharnetzki, Elizabeth
Waterston, Leo
Scherer, Aaron M
Thorpe, Alistair
Fagerlin, Angela
Han, Paul K J
Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title_full Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title_fullStr Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title_full_unstemmed Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title_short Effects of Prosocial and Hope-Promoting Communication Strategies on COVID-19 Worry and Intentions for Risk-Reducing Behaviors and Vaccination: Experimental Study
title_sort effects of prosocial and hope-promoting communication strategies on covid-19 worry and intentions for risk-reducing behaviors and vaccination: experimental study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10411423/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37379364
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/41959
work_keys_str_mv AT scharnetzkielizabeth effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy
AT waterstonleo effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy
AT schereraaronm effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy
AT thorpealistair effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy
AT fagerlinangela effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy
AT hanpaulkj effectsofprosocialandhopepromotingcommunicationstrategiesoncovid19worryandintentionsforriskreducingbehaviorsandvaccinationexperimentalstudy