Improving the Reach of Clinical Practice Guidelines: An Experimental Investigation of Message Framing on User Engagement

Abstract

<jats:p> Despite strong evidence for the efficacy of treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), most affected individuals are not receiving these treatments, in part because they may not know that evidence-based treatments exist. The American Psychological Association published a website to disseminate information about its Clinical Practice Guideline for treating PTSD. In Study 1, Google Optimize was used in a field study to examine whether altering the subheadings to three of the website pages would increase site visitor engagement. On the main page and on the page with treatment descriptions, no subheading alterations improved engagement. On the Patients and Families page, the subheading “say goodbye to symptoms” improved engagement on three outcome variables, including clicking a link to find a psychologist (although there were a small number of clicks). In a preregistered conceptual replication in a sample not actively seeking information about the PTSD guideline ( N = 578), the results were not replicable. Results highlight challenges of disseminating information about evidence-based treatment. </jats:p>

Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Direct-to-Consumer Marketing Video About Patients' Right to Evidence-Based Mental Health Care

“…Participants in the PBOR and asthma conditions completed three items assessing their perceptions of their assigned video: “How informative did you find the video?”; “How engaging did you find the video?”; and “How familiar were you with the information covered in the video before you watched?” Items were modified from single-item measures of perceptions of web-based DTC marketing materials (Werntz et al, 2020) and analyzed separately using a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).…”

“…"; and "How familiar were you with the information covered in the video before you watched?" Items were modified from single-item measures of perceptions of web-based DTC marketing materials (Werntz et al, 2020) and analyzed separately using a 5point Likert scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely).…”

“…One possible explanation for the mixed findings is that most prior studies were conducted using general samples consisting of individuals who may not want or need psychological treatment (e.g., Amsalem et al, 2023;Brecht et al, 2017;Demyan and Anderson, 2012;Kaplan et al, 2012;Ponzini and Schofield, 2019;Schofield et al, 2017). It is possible that individuals who need treatment may be more impacted by exposure to DTC videos because they may feel more motivated to pay attention to the content and subsequently take steps to seek help compared with individuals without treatment needs (Werntz, et al, 2020). Thus, while the DTC video in the present study was designed for a general audience, exploratory tests also examined whether individuals' clinical characteristics and treatment use moderated the effects of watching a DTC video about EBMHC.…”

Minimal Effect of Messaging on Engagement in a Digital Anxiety Intervention

“…This was unexpected given that research on nudging suggests that minor changes in the wording of persuasive messages can shape health behavior in some domains (e.g., encouraging cancer prevention and smoking cessation behaviors; Gallagher & Updegraff, 2011; increasing rates of COVID-19 vaccination; Dai et al, 2021). Yet, an emerging body of research pertaining specifically to mental health behaviors suggests that slight alterations in the wording of persuasive messages may not be sufficient to shift mental health treatment-seeking behaviors (e.g., Salari & Backman, 2017;Werntz et al, 2020).…”