Background: Short and animated story-based SAS videos can be an effective strategy for promoting health messages. However, health promotion strategies often motivate the rejection of health messages, a phenomenon known as reactance. In this study, we examine whether the child narrator of a SAS video perceived as nonthreatening, with low social authority minimizes reactance to a health message about the consumption of added sugars.
Objective: This study aims to determine whether our SAS intervention video attenuates reactance to the sugar message when compared with a content placebo video a health message about sunscreen and a placebo video a nonhealth message about earthquakes and determine if the child narrator is more effective at reducing reactance to the sugar message when compared with the mother narrator equivalent social authority to target audience or family physician narrator high social authority of the same SAS video.
Methods: This is a web-based randomized controlled trial comparing an intervention video about sugar reduction narrated by a child, the child's mother, or the family physician with a content placebo video about sunscreen use and a placebo video about earthquakes. The primary end points are differences in the antecedents to reactance proneness to reactance, threat level of the message , its components anger and negative cognition , and outcomes source appraisal and attitude.
Results: Between December 9 and December 11, , we recruited We found a strong causal relationship between the persuasiveness of the content promoted by the videos and the components of reactance. Compared with the placebo mean 1. We found no evidence that the child narrator mean 1. Conclusions: Although children may be perceived as nonthreatening messengers, we found no evidence that a child narrator attenuated reactance to a SAS video about sugar consumption when compared with a physician.
Furthermore, our intervention videos, with well-intended goals toward audience health awareness, aroused higher levels of reactance when compared with the placebo videos. Our results highlight the challenges in developing effective interventions to promote persuasive health messages. International registered report identifier irrid : RR Keywords: animated video; digital intervention; health communication; reactance; sugar reduction. Abstract Background: Short and animated story-based SAS videos can be an effective strategy for promoting health messages.
