A randomised on-line survey exploring how health condition labels affect behavioural intentions

Area of Science:

• Health Psychology
• Behavioral Science
• Medical Decision Making

Background:

• Understanding how health information is presented is crucial for influencing patient behavior.
• Asymptomatic health conditions, such as pre-diabetes and pre-hypertension, present unique challenges in engaging patients in further testing.
• Previous research often focuses on symptomatic illnesses, leaving a gap in understanding responses to borderline health states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of 'labels' versus 'descriptions' on participants' intentions to pursue further tests for four asymptomatic health conditions.
• To assess the influence of confidence and satisfaction on these intentions.
• To identify psychological drivers affecting health-related behavioral intentions.

Main Methods:

• Utilized practitioner-validated health scenarios with two variants: 'labelled' and 'descriptive'.
• Recruited participants internationally via Qualtrics and randomly assigned them to either label or descriptive conditions.
• Analyzed intentions, confidence, satisfaction, and psychological predictors using regression analysis.

Main Results:

• No significant difference in intentions to test was found between the label and description conditions (p = 0.4).
• Confidence (β = 0.58) and satisfaction (β = 0.67) were strongly and positively associated with intentions to test.
• Psychological factors, including predisposition to seek healthcare (β = 0.72) and concern (β = 0.51), significantly predicted intentions.

Conclusions:

• Disease labeling did not influence behavioral intentions for asymptomatic conditions, contrary to findings in symptomatic illnesses.
• Higher intention scores were observed in this sample compared to previous studies on symptomatic conditions.
• Perceptions of asymptomatic illnesses shifted towards greater concern under the label condition, suggesting a potential psychological impact despite unchanged testing intentions.