Are you Concerned? Patient Testimonials in Medical Communication Affect Healthy Recipients' Emotions and Memory

Abstract

Medical communication and health care intervention programs often include testimonials (i.e., an account of individuals' experiences) when addressing health-related topics. Numerous findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of such testimonials on intentions for health behavior change. However, little is known about whether and how testimonials affect healthy lay people's reception of health information (e.g., in journalistic reports about medical innovations). The present studies tested whether using patients vs. doctors as testimonial protagonists in communication affects unconcerned recipients' affective experiences and their memory performance regarding text content. Two experiments (Prestudy: N = 43; Main Experiment: N = 97, university student samples) demonstrated that using patients as protagonists elicited stronger negative and weaker positive emotions in recipients than using doctors as protagonists. Results of one of the experiments further suggested that the affective experience influenced recipients' memory performance so that less positive and more negative DBS-related information was remembered when patients were protagonists, due to elicited negative emotions. The findings are discussed with regard to their implications for medical communication.

Exploring the influence of testimonial source on attitudes towards e-mental health interventions among university students: Four-group randomized controlled trial

“…In line with the ELM [ 30 ], personal involvement and interest may contribute to systematic information processing and may reduce the impact of testimonials based on heuristics. Accordingly, earlier research indicated that the perceptions of testimonials by unconcerned people may differ from those with past or current health problems on the one hand [ 33 ]. Yet, some studies demonstrated positive effects of testimonials on hypothetical psychological treatment decisions [ 25 , 34 ].…”

“…To date, however, most research on the effects of health-related testimonials has focused on patient narratives in decision aids and hypothetical medical treatment or screening choices by patients [32]. Much less is known about how unconcerned people process health testimonials with respect to preventative purposes [33]. More remarkably, very few studies have investigated the effects of testimonials on views about psychological interventions such as eMHSs, and the existing research yielded indecisive findings [34][35][36][37].…”

Pro‐vaccination subjective norms moderate the relationship between conspiracy mentality and vaccination intentions

“…This seems particularly promising as attempts to influence conspiracy believers are often unsuccessful, especially when the communication comes from authorities (Imhoff et al, 2018;. In the current case, personalised health communication might be more successful (Sassenrath, Greving, & Sassenberg, 2018;Sassenrath, Sassenberg, & Greving, 2017). When talking, for instance, about the COVID-19 vaccination, it could be a first step to reveal one's own positive vaccination intentions to close others who endorse conspiracy beliefs.…”

Acceptance and use of e-mental health services among university students

“…In der vorliegenden Studie wurden nur positive Aussagen über eMHSs verwendet, was bei Nutzerbewertungen unrealistisch erscheinen mag. Infolgedessen sollte zukünftige Forschung die Valenz von Testimonials variieren [ 25 ].…”