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How Can E-Cigarette Fear Appeals Improve the Perceived Threat, Fear, Anger, and Protection Motivation of Young People.

ABSTRACT: The lack of awareness regarding the risks of e-cigarettes and the misleading business propaganda caused an increase in the popularity of e-cigarettes among young people. The effective communication of the risks associated with e-cigarettes is an important part of current work to control their usage, and the use of fear appeals is an effective method to achieve good control. Based on the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) and Appraisal-Tendency Framework (ATF), this article presents a 2 × 2 control experiment to test the impact of fear appeals on the perception of risk, emotions, and behavioral motivation of young people aged 35 and less. A total of 333 valid samples of adolescents and young adults were included to investigate the different response paths to fear appeals among young people of different age, sex and smoking history. The results show that high-threat, high-efficacy fear appeals are able to: (1) significantly increase young people's perception of the e-cigarette-associated threats, (2) trigger fear and anger amongst young people, and (3) stimulate their self-protection motivation. Fear appeals do not have an impact on young people's perception of efficacy, regardless of their level of threat and efficacy. High fear appeals can also increase young people's perception of threat, which in turn enhances their anger and protection motivation. Furthermore, while this type of fear appeal can enhance young women's perception of efficacy, it cannot enhance the perception of e-cigarette risks in adolescents, young men and young smokers, regardless of their level of threat and efficacy. Young non-smokers have a higher perception of the risks involved in the use of e-cigarettes compared with young smokers.

SUBMITTER: Sun C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8435607 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundSerious games for the training of prevention behaviors have been widely recognized as potentially valuable tools for adolescents and young adults across a variety of risk behaviors. However, the role of agency as a distinguishing factor from traditional health interventions has seldom been isolated and grounded in the persuasive health communication theory. Fear appeals have different effects on intentions to perform prevention behaviors depending on the immediacy of the consequences. Looking into how to increase self-efficacy beliefs for health behavior with distant consequences is the first step toward improving game-based interventions for adverse health outcomes.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the effect of agency on self-efficacy and the intention to drink less alcohol in an interactive digital narrative fear appeal. Furthermore, the communicated immediacy of threat outcomes was evaluated as a potential moderator of the effect of agency on self-efficacy.MethodsA web-based experimental study was conducted with university students (N=178). The participants were presented with a fear appeal outlining the consequences of excessive alcohol use in a fully automated web-based interactive narrative. Participants either had perceived control over the outcome of the narrative scenario (high agency) or no control over the outcome (low agency). The threat was either framed as a short-term (high immediacy) or long-term (low immediacy) negative health outcome resulting from the execution of the risk behavior (drinking too much alcohol).ResultsA total of 123 valid cases were analyzed. Self-efficacy and intention to limit alcohol intake were not influenced by the agency manipulation. Self-efficacy was shown to be a significant predictor of behavioral intention. The immediacy of the threat did not moderate the relationship between agency and self-efficacy.ConclusionsAlthough agency manipulation was successful, we could not find evidence of an effect of agency or threat immediacy on self-efficacy. The implications for different operationalizations of different agency concepts, as well as the malleability of self-efficacy beliefs for long-term threats, are discussed. The use of repeated versus single interventions and different threat types (eg, health and social threats) should be tested empirically to establish a way forward for diversifying intervention approaches.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT05321238; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05321238.

Project description:With more than 100 million cases and over 2 million deaths globally, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to remain a major threat. Identifying the behavioral factors influencing preventive behaviors for COVID-19 are crucial in devising public health policies to promote essential strategies to combat the pandemic in an efficient manner. The current study was therefore conducted to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 preventive behaviors and measure their association with behavioral constructs like threat perception, response efficacy, and self-efficacy, as per socio-demographic background. A region-stratified online survey focusing on the constructs of protection motivation theory, for example, threat and coping appraisal for preventive health practices against COVID-19, was carried out among adult users of social media in India. Generalized linear models with cluster-adjusted-robust standard errors were used to analyze the responses and model the preventive practices among the study population. Analysis of a total 2,646 responses revealed that proper perceptions regarding cause, symptoms, and transmission of COVID-19 were prevalent in the majority of the respondents. The majority of the participants reported frequent use of face masks (93.20%), followed by frequent washing of hands with soap and water (84.90%). The majority of the respondents affirmed that, though not frequently but sometimes, they avoid touching the face with unclean hands. Frequently covering mouth with the crook of the elbow while sneezing and coughing, and maintaining physical distance when outside was noted among 74.14 and 83.84%, respectively. The proportion of participants frequently using sanitizers to clean hands and those infrequently practicing the same were comparable. Self-efficacy for preventive practices and threat-appraisal of COVID-19 illness were identified as important determinants of the selected COVID-19 preventive behaviors, independently. The analysis confirmed that practices of the behaviors were mostly synergistic to each other. Current findings highlight that formulation of precise risk communication strategies to improve perceptions regarding threat appraisal and self-efficacy could facilitate desirable practices, which are also effective in the prevention of airborne infections and, hence, may contribute toward broader policy directions. The evidence urges the implementation of precision-driven risk communication and diffusion of these practices to attain behavioral herd immunity.

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How Can E-Cigarette Fear Appeals Improve the Perceived Threat, Fear, Anger, and Protection Motivation of Young People.

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