A case for clarity in the writing of health statements

While effectively written health-related materials can facilitate self-care, using negative wording may backfire, as patients may forget negations and remember the opposite of intended information. The present study attempts to determine if older readers are particularly susceptible to misremembering negatively worded health-related statements.

Younger and older adults read positively and negatively worded statements and were later tested for memory of the exact statements, statements opposite in meaning due to the addition or deletion of a negation, and entirely new statements.

For intact statements, both groups recognized more positive than negative statements. When statements reversed meanings, younger adults were more likely to accurately recognize items that changed from negative to positive than were older adults, who were more likely to incorrectly endorse changed items as intact when items began negative and became positive than the reverse.

The inclusion of negations, often used in attention-grabbing techniques such as myth-busting, can backfire, especially among older audiences who are less likely to accurately remember negatively worded items and especially likely to endorse their positive counterparts.

Designers of healthcare materials should avoid using negatively worded statements, which may be misremembered by vulnerable populations, in favor of positive wording.