Testing the effectiveness of a skin cancer narrative in promoting positive health behavior: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this experiment was to examine the differential impact of a narrative and a non-narrative skin cancer message on health promoting actions and information-seeking behaviors.

METHODS

Participants were 230 Flemish university students aged 18 to 25 years who participated in a web based experiment in February 2009. Students were randomly assigned to a narrative skin cancer message, a non-narrative message or a no-message control condition. The messages contained identical information about recommended actions to prevent or detect skin cancer. Four weeks after exposure to the stimuli, respondents received a questionnaire assessing their actual health behaviors.

RESULTS

Multinomial logistic regression results indicated that participants who had been exposed to the narrative message were two to four times more likely to have engaged in health promoting actions, compared to participants in the control group. In contrast, the impact of the non-narrative condition only differed from that of the control group for searching more information about skin cancer.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that narrative messages may be a powerful means for promoting positive health actions.