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Attitudes and Understanding of Sodium Claims on Food Labels

Consumer Attitudes and Understanding of Low Sodium Claims on Food: An Analysis of Healthy and Hypertensive Individuals

Status
Completed
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Observational
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT01764724
Enrollment
987
Registered
2013-01-10
Start date
2011-09-30
Completion date
2011-10-31
Last updated
2013-01-10

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

Conditions

Hypertension

Keywords

Attitudes and understanding of sodium claims, General canadian population

Brief summary

Sodium-related claims on food labels should help people find lower sodium food choices; however consumer attitudes and understanding of such claims are unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate: 1) the attitudes and understanding to different types of permitted sodium claims and 2) the effect of hypertension on responses to such claims.

Interventions

Within a online questionnaire we exposed participants randomly to 4 mock packages differing only by the nutrition claim it carried and asked participants to answer several questions on attitudes and understanding after each mock package.

Sponsors

Advance Foods and Materials Network
CollaboratorOTHER
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
CollaboratorOTHER_GOV
Canadian Stroke Network
CollaboratorOTHER
University of Toronto
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Observational model
ECOLOGIC_OR_COMMUNITY
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
20 Years to 69 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Primary grocery shoppers * Canadian adults between the ages 20 to 69 years

Exclusion criteria

* Did not have an email address or have access to internet

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Response to survey questions measuring attitudes towards sodium claims using 5 point likert rating scalesOn average the survey took 25 minutes to completeWithin an online survey, participants were exposed to 4 mock soup packages that differed only by the claim it carried. After being exposed to each mock package, participants were asked to rate their perceived attractiveness, healthiness, credibility, usefulness of the tested sodium claims using 5 point likert scales. Participants were also asked to rate their purchasing intentions of the mock soup product with the different sodium claims.
Response to survey questions evaluating participants understanding of sodium claimsOn average the survey took 25 minutes to completeAfter each mock package, understanding of sodium claims was evaluated using various survey methods. First, participants were asked to rate their perceived clarity of the wording of the claim using a 5 point likert scale (a subjective measure of understanding). Second, participants were ask to rate, on 5 point likert scales, the perceived benefit of consuming the mock package for subgroups with different health conditions (an indirect measure of understanding). Finally we asked participants, in an open ended question, to explain what a claim means to a friend (an objective measure of understanding).

Countries

Canada

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Mar 23, 2026