title: Confidence in the safety of blood for transfusion: the effect of message framing.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Blood transfusion is a universally used, life-saving medical intervention. However, there are increasing concerns among patients about blood safety. This study investigates the effect of message framing, a means of presenting information, on confidence in blood transfusion safety.
  
  
  METHODS
  The same factual information regarding the safety of blood for transfusion was presented to a sample of 254 adult students (donors and nondonors) as either a gain frame (lives saved), a loss frame (lives lost), or a combined frame (a loss frame expressed in a positive context). This provided a basic two-way, between-subjects design with 1) blood donation history (donors vs. nondonors) and 2) message frame (gain, loss, and combined) functioning as the between-groups factors. It was hypothesized that participants would consider blood safer if information was presented as a gain frame. The role of stress appraisals as potential mediators of the framing effect was also explored.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As predicted, participants receiving the gain-frame information were significantly more confident of the safety of blood for transfusion than those receiving loss-frame information or both. This was unaffected by donation history or appraisals of stress associated with transfusion. The extent to which blood was considered safe was negatively associated, independently of framing effects, with perceptions that transfusion was threatening.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Information about transfusion should be conveyed to patients in a form focusing on the positive, rather than the negative, known facts about the safety of blood.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ferguson
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: James
authors.forename: K C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Lowe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001782:Blood Donors; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D010465:Perception; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012449:Safety; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology; D065227:Transfusion Reaction