Examining the Impact of Public Service Announcements on Help Seeking and Stigma: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.
Health communication campaigns often seek to diminish stigma and promote care seeking, with public service announcements (PSAs) frequently prominent in these campaigns. One example is the Australian-based beyondblue campaign. As an alternative approach, campaigns may seek to reduce stigma by promoting stories of recovery. Participants completed measures of stigmatizing and empowering attitudes at pre-, post-, and 72-hour follow-up after being randomized to a PSA recovery-oriented video, treatable disease-oriented video (beyondblue), or control. When exposed to the recovery-oriented PSA, participants showed significant reduction in stigmatizing attitudes from pre- to posttest than beyondblue or the control group with the emergence of nonsignificant trends identified at follow-up. Findings suggest a recovery-oriented video leads to better change on measures of stigma and affirming attitudes than beyondblue. Despite the aforementioned findings, results failed to show either the recovery or beyondblue videos had a significant impact on intent to seek treatment.
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL.
Patrick W
PW
Corrigan
Karina J
KJ
Powell
Maya A
MA
Al-Khouja
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology*; D066308:Public Service Announcements as Topic; D057545:Social Stigma; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult