JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Public engagement with preventive health messages is a well-documented challenge. Entertainment-education (E-E) uses the popular appeal of entertainment media to engage audiences through narratives embedded in radio dramas and television series, but little research has documented the potential of short, animated E-E that is spreadable via social media.

Objective:

In this study, we investigate participants’ willingness to voluntarily engage with a short, animated E-E video on sugar consumption. The video served as the intervention within a trial investigating psychological reactance to health messaging.

Methods:

Our study was embedded within a parallel group, randomized controlled trial in which 4,013 participants from the United Kingdom were randomly assigned to three different intervention arms (Arms 1-3), a content-placebo arm (Arm 4), and a placebo arm (Arm 5). Each of the three intervention arms viewed the same video, narrated by a voice that reflected different levels of social authority. At the end of the study, participants in the non-intervention groups were offered the chance to voluntarily watch the E-E video. We used the decision to view the E-E video and the duration of time spent watching it to quantify participant engagement.

Results:

Overall, 66.14% of the participants voluntarily opted to watch the E-E video. Among these participants, the mean duration of viewing was 116.35 out of a total of 222 seconds.

Conclusions:

Participants’ engagement with the E-E video was promising. Short, animated E-E videos could be an effective, accessible, and low-cost method of delivering health messages to a wide audience on social media channels. Clinical Trial: The study and its outcomes were registered with the German Clinical Trials Register (2021) on July 24th, 2020: # DRKS00022340.