Social Media Indoor Tanning Study

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Skin Cancer

Interventions: Behavioral: Sun Safety Social Media Challenge
Behavioral: Digital Health Social Media Challenge

Registration Number: NCT03834974

Lead Sponsor: University of Connecticut

Brief Summary: The purpose of this research is to develop a social media delivered intervention to reduce unprotected sun exposure in young adults with a history of tanning.

Detailed Description: We will use social marketing theory and a user-centered design approach to develop a social media intervention that engages young adults with a history of tanning to practice sun safety behaviors. We will incentivize young adults who have a history of tanning to create social media posts that encourage their peers to engage in sun safety. Focus groups of tanners guided the development of the intervention. Investigators will conduct a pilot feasibility trial where participants will be randomized to a condition in which they are incentivized to create sun safety social media messages to be posted on a sun safety social media account or a condition in which they are incentivized to create social media messages about how to use technology to support healthy lifestyle behaviors to be posted on a health technology social media account. The intervention will last 4 weeks. Feasibility outcomes include recruitment, retention, acceptability, participation, social media message engagement (likes, comments, shares), persuasive impact of messages, unprotected sun exposure, sun protection, and tanning behavior. This work will inform a fully powered randomized trial testing the efficacy of this intervention.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 66

Inclusion Criteria

Ages 18-30
Tanned indoors or outdoors at least once in the past year
Intends to tan indoors or outdoors this summer
Daily user of any social media platform

Exclusion Criteria

No smartphone
Does not use a social media platform daily
Lives in a state with an average temperature <75 degrees in May
Inability to provide consent due to mental illness or a cognitive impairment
Non-English speaking
Prisoner

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Sun Safety Social Media Challenge	Sun Safety Social Media Challenge	During this 4-week intervention, participants will be incentivized to create sun safety social media messages that will be distributed on our sun safety Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Digital Health Social Media Challenge	Digital Health Social Media Challenge	During this 4-week intervention, participants will be incentivized to create posts that promote the use of technology to engage in healthy lifestyle behaviors (diet, exercise) on our digital health Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Post Engagement	4 weeks	The median number of likes, shares and retweets, and unique commenters each participant post received.
Contamination	4-week follow-up	The number of participants who report they saw the opposite conditions Facebook or Twitter feeds.
Participation	4-week follow-up	The number of posts created by participants
Acceptability	4-week follow-up	Number of participants who selected agree or strongly agree on 5-point Likert scale rating of how likely participants would be to recommend the intervention to a friend, and how likely they would be to participate again.
Recruitment	Baseline	The number of completed respondents to recruitment ads, number of respondents eligible at initial screening, and number of respondents who completed baseline.
Retention	4-week follow-up	The % of participants in each condition who complete the follow-up assessment.
Desirability of Tanning	4-week follow-up	Scale measuring participants' belief that a tan is attractive. Scale ranges from 0-12 with higher scores indicating higher levels of belief that a tan is attractive.
Desirability of Tanning Alternatives	4-week follow-up	Average score on items relating to tanning alternative desirability. Scale ranges from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating more positive attitudes towards tanning alternatives.
Persuasive Impact of Participant Messages	4-week follow-up	The mean of participants ratings for how persuasive they found each post (other than those they created) on a scale of 0-100, with higher scores indicating more persuasive.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Sun Exposure	4-week follow-up	How many hours the participant spent outside per week between 10am and 4pm
Outdoor Tanning	4-week follow-up	How many times in the last 4 weeks the participant went outside for the purpose of tanning in the sun.
Outdoor Tanning Intentions	4-week follow-up	Three items assessed intentions to tan even once, intentions to tan regularly in the next year, and intentions to quit on a 7-point scale (0=definitely will not, 6=definitely will).
Sun Protection	4-week follow-up	Number of participants who reported using sun protection (sunscreen, protective clothing) often or always in the past month
Sunburn	4 weeks	Number of participants with 1 or more sunburns in the past month
Outdoor Tanning Duration	Baseline	Median reported average number of minutes tanned per episode in the past 4 weeks, among participants who tanned in the past 4 weeks.
Indoor Tanning Behavior	4 weeks	Number of indoor tanning visits in the previous month