Impact of television depictions of illness on perceptions of illness

A randomized study of the impact of television depictions of illness on healthy adults' perceptions of illness

Status

Completed

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12622000518763

Enrollment

200

Registered

2022-03-31

Start date

2022-02-21

Completion date

2022-07-31

Last updated

2023-04-24

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

Television and film can affect how we understand illness. Gout is a common form of arthritis. Historically, gout has been viewed as related to overindulgence. Gout is frequently described as related to overindulgence of food and beverages in popular media such as newspapers and television. We hypothesise that viewing a television episode depicting gout as a humorous disease of overindulgence will lead to negative perceptions about gout and its management.

Interventions

Participants will watch a television episode containing a character experiencing a gout flare. The episode is a commercially produced television episode from the series 'Everybody Hates Chris' which contains a depiction of a character with gout, distributed by CBS Television Distribution. This is available on national free to view programming and DVD. The duration of the episode is 30 minutes and is watched as a single viewing only. The episode will be watched either at a research visit at the Bone and Joint Research Group at the University of Auckland, via DVD or on free to view programming link. The participant will be asked if they have watched the television episode prior to carrying out the questionnaire.

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Educational / counselling / training

Masking

Blinded (masking used) (Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

18 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

Aged 18 years or older and able to complete a questionnaire in English.

Exclusion criteria

Cognitive impairment which would preclude completion of the questionnaire.

Outcome results