Effective Communication to Improve Decision Making About Health Care Plans
Overview
- Phase
- Not Applicable
- Intervention
- Not specified
- Conditions
- Health Literacy
- Sponsor
- Washington University School of Medicine
- Enrollment
- 343
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Knowledge
- Status
- Completed
- Last Updated
- 9 years ago
Overview
Brief Summary
The overall goal of the study is to better understand how communication strategies can help people make decisions about health insurance plans.
This study aims to:
- (Aim 1) Examine currently uninsured individuals' understanding of terminology and details of health insurance plans;
- (Aim 2) Apply three recommended strategies for communicating information about health insurance plans;
- (Aim 3) Test the effects of these strategies in a randomized experiment.
Detailed Description
First, this study will examine people's understanding of health insurance plan terminology and details through qualitative interviews with 50 uninsured individuals. These responses will then lead to the development of three communication strategies to improve understanding of health insurance plans: 1) plain language, 2) plain language plus visual displays and 3) plain language plus narratives. The strategies will the be pilot tested with 30 individuals to assess readability, clarity of language, and layout. The revised communication strategies will be tested with 280 individuals in a randomized experiment. Individuals will be randomly assigned to either a plain language condition alone, a plain language + visual displays condition, and a plain language + narrative condition.
Investigators
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria
- •Must be without health insurance currently
- •Must have been without health insurance at some point in the past 12 months
- •Must speak English
Exclusion Criteria
- •Currently has health insurance and has not had any lapses in coverage in the past 12 months
- •Does not speak English
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Knowledge
Time Frame: 1 day (Immediately following showing the participant the assigned intervention (plain language table, plain language table + visuals, or plain language table + narratives)
Knowledge measures the degree at which participants understand the details about health insurance plans. Knowledge was scored on a scale from 0 to 7 based on number of correct answers to the 7 items. A higher value is considered to be a better outcome. Bivariate outcome data can be found below.
Uncertainty
Time Frame: 1 day (Immediately following showing the participant the assigned intervention (plain language table, plain language table + visuals, or plain language table + narratives)
A survey will be administered in order to measure participants' confidence in the features of health insurance plans that matter most to them and the insurance plan they chose of the ones presented. Confidence in choice is scored on a scale from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more decisional conflict/more uncertainty/less confidence in choice. Bivariate outcome data can be found below.
Satisfaction
Time Frame: 1 day (Immediately following showing the participant the assigned intervention (plain language table, plain language table + visuals, or plain language table + narratives)
A survey will be administered in order to measure the extent to which participants are satisfied with the information presented to them. Satisfaction was scored on a scale from 1 to 4, with higher scores indicating higher levels of satisfaction. Bivariate outcome data can be found below.