Affective Health Messages for Adolescents: Protocol for a Scoping Review

Affect plays a pivotal role in capturing people's attention with health messages that influence audiences' perceptions, attitudes, and, ultimately, health-related behavior. Adolescents are notably sensitive to affective cues in communication. However, there is a lack of reviews synthesizing the evidence examining the role of affect in health messaging targeted at adolescents.

The aim of this scoping review is to systematically map and synthesize the empirical studies examining the role of affective health message content targeted at adolescents and the associated communication outcomes.

We will conduct our review in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist. We will include empirical studies that examine health messages directed at adolescents from formal or informal sources, as well as studies using research-based experimental designs. Only studies focusing on public communication through mediated communication (eg, social media, the internet, and television) will be included. To be eligible, studies must explore message content targeted at adolescents' emotions. We will include studies reporting on communication outcomes in the context of urgent or nonurgent health issues. Only English-language, peer-reviewed empirical studies published in 2014 or later will be included. Data from eligible studies will be extracted into a matrix, summarized in tabular form, and synthesized using a descriptive qualitative analysis.

As of May 2025, we have searched the Embase, Ovid MEDLINE, and PsycInfo databases and screened 29 reviews, which has resulted in 1856 unique hits. Scopus will be added to the search. Screening and full-text assessment will be conducted in 2026.

We anticipate that this scoping review will provide insights into how adolescents behave, form judgments, and make decisions in response to health messages targeted at their emotions. Additionally, the review will conclude by outlining the research gaps and offering recommendations for future studies.