Literacy and Smoking Risk Communications

Running, not enrolling · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Smoking

In brief

Objectives: Smokers with varying levels of health literacy as assessed by the S-TOFHLA (i.e., inadequate, marginal, adequate) recruited from the community will listen to one of 4 different types of messages emphasizing the health consequences of smoking recorded on a computer in the form of audio scripts (i.e., a human voice pre-recorded on a computer will read each message). Messages written at a 5th to 6th grade reading level will be concurrently presented in written form via a computer monitor and be manipulated in terms of 1) emotionality (i.e., primarily fact- vs. primarily emotion-based), and 2) framing (i.e., gain-framed messages that highlight the potential benefits of quitting smoking vs. loss-framed messages that emphasize the potential costs of failing to quit smoking). Emotionality and framing will be completely crossed to create four different types of messages, 1) factual gain-framed (FGF), 2) factual loss-framed (FLF), 3) emotional gain-framed (EGF), and 4) emotional loss-framed (ELF). The primary objectives are to: 1. Examine whether main effects emerge for health literacy as assessed by the S-TOFHLA (inadequate, marginal, adequate) and the different message types (fact- vs. emotion-based and gain- vs. loss-framed) on the primary explicit and implicit outcomes: a) intention to quit, and b) implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking. 2. Examine whether health literacy interacts with the different types of messages (fact-based vs. emotion-based and gain-framed vs. loss-framed) to influence the primary explicit and implicit outcome measures: a) intention to quit smoking, and b) implicit and explicit attitudes toward smoking. A secondary, exploratory aim is to: 3. Examine potential associations between a) the primary explicit and implicit outcomes, and b) the secondary explicit and implicit outcomes: knowledge, risk perception, attitudes, self-efficacy, message evaluations, implicit fear of disease, and implicit associations between smoking and disease.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT00684437

Run by

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

People needed

494

Starts

2008-05-21

Expected to finish

2028-05-31

Last updated by the study team

2026-07-21

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 70. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• age 18 to 70 years
• current smoker with a history of at least 5 cigarettes/day for the last year
• can speak, read, and write in English
• home address and a functioning home telephone number

You may not qualify if…

• current use of nicotine replacement therapy or bupropion
• current enrollment in a smoking cessation treatment program
• expired CO<10 ppm

Where it is running

• University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — Houston, Texas, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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