Testing the Persuasiveness of Pro-inoculation Arguments

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Vaccination Hesitancy; Human Papillomavirus Vaccination; Vaccine Refusal
• Interventions: Behavioral: Simple forewarning message; Behavioral: Argument inoculation messages

• Registration Number: NCT05804825
• Lead Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania

Brief Summary

The investigators will recruit a national sample of parents of 7-10-year-olds to complete an argument strength ranking for either a simple forwarding message or between 3 and 6 randomly selected arguments from an overall set of 50 to 100 messages identified from various online sources. Parents will rate each message they see on measures of perceived argument strength/PME. Parents will also answer sociodemographic questions and then rank the believability of a set of anti-vaccine messages identified in a different study. Study findings will contribute valuable information to understanding the effectiveness of different inoculation messages.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2022-10-20
• Study First Submitted QC: 2023-04-05
• Study First Posted: 2023-04-07
• Study Start: 2023-05-04
• Primary Completion: 2023-05-24
• Study Completion: 2023-05-24
• Status Verified: 2023-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2023-07-07
• Last Update Posted: 2023-07-11

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 523

Inclusion Criteria

1. Male or female parent or legal guardian of an adolescent ages 7-10
2. Age eligible child has not yet received any doses of the HPV vaccine
3. Resides in the United States
4. English speaking
5. Completed informed consent

Exclusion Criteria

1. Unable to read English at a 6th grade literacy level
2. Age < 18
3. Does not have a child within the age range of 7-10
4. Age-eligible child has received 1 or more doses of the HPV vaccine
5. Does not have a social media account on one or more of the following platforms OR does not read online news stories: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook (feasibility testing only - survey participation will not have this exclusion criteria)
6. Unwilling or unable to provide informed consent to study participation

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Simple forewarning message	Simple forewarning message	Participants will receive a simple short forewarning message to read and rate.
Argument inoculation messages	Argument inoculation messages	Participants will view a random sample of 3 text-only short messages (from a corpus of 100 arguments) to read and rate.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Argument strength/PME	The outcome measure will be assessed immediately after the participant has viewed each pro-HPV vaccine message if they are in the multiple message condition, or the simple message if they are in the simple message condition stimuli during the survey.	Arguments will be rated for their argument strength/message effectiveness
Misinformation believability	The outcome measure will be assessed immediately after the participant has viewed each misinformation message during the survey.	A rating of the believability/ credibility of vaccine misinformation

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

UPenn; 🇺🇸 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States