Nelson Karen A, Mirzaei Sahereh, Schlaeger Judith M, Li Hongjin, Burke Larisa, Cabezas Peter, Meinel Monya, Rountree Lauren, Su Sofie, DeVon Holli A
University of California Los Angeles, School of Nursing, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
University of Illinois Chicago, College of Nursing, Chicago, IL, USA.
West J Nurs Res. 2025 Aug;47(8):764-769. doi: 10.1177/01939459251342753. Epub 2025 May 26.
Attention control is an important part of clinical trials, allowing the influence of attention to be parsed from the effects of the intervention. Poor control group design can lead to unintended outcomes, overestimate the effectiveness of an intervention, or threaten a potentially beneficial treatment. The aims of this paper were to describe the development of a novel attention control using TED Talks and provide recommendations for the design of an attention control condition.
Twenty-four TED Talks were selected for inclusion in the control condition. The talks ranged from 6.0 to 19.1 minutes for a total length of 4 hours and 12 minutes (mean = 10 minutes, 30 seconds). Topics included education, technology, health, space, human behavior, sanitation, parenting, cliff climbing, public speaking, happiness, obituaries, procrastination, and age diversity. We then developed 3 to 4 simple questions reflecting the content of the Talk. Responses ranged from true/false to 4 multiple-choice answers. Four to five videos were selected for each attention control session and bundled to create an approximately 90-minute attention control condition to match the intervention (acupuncture) session (45 minutes × 10 sessions).
We developed an attention control condition that met crucial requirements of (1) equivalent attention to that of the experimental group, (2) a design that can hold the participant's interest, (3) standardization to avoid potentially confounding outcomes, and (4) the evaluation of expectancy.
Investigators can develop a rigorous attention control condition using TED Talks guided by our protocol.
注意力控制是临床试验的重要组成部分，它能将注意力的影响与干预效果区分开来。对照组设计不佳可能导致意外结果，高估干预效果，或危及潜在有益的治疗方法。本文旨在描述一种使用TED演讲的新型注意力控制方法的开发过程，并为注意力控制条件的设计提供建议。
选择24个TED演讲纳入对照条件。这些演讲时长从6.0分钟到19.1分钟不等，总时长为4小时12分钟（平均时长 = 10分钟30秒）。主题包括教育、科技、健康、太空、人类行为、卫生设施、育儿、攀岩、公众演讲、幸福、讣告、拖延和年龄多样性。然后，我们针对每个演讲内容编写了3至4个简单问题。答案包括是非题以及4个多项选择题。每次注意力控制环节选择4至5个视频，并将它们组合在一起，形成一个约90分钟的注意力控制条件，以匹配干预（针灸）环节（45分钟×10次）。
我们开发的注意力控制条件满足了以下关键要求：（1）与实验组的注意力相当；（2）能够保持参与者兴趣的设计；（3）标准化以避免潜在的混淆结果；（4）预期评估。
研究人员可以根据我们的方案，利用TED演讲开发出严格的注意力控制条件。
