JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Stigma towards people with addiction is a well-documented phenomenon that dramatically impacts help-seeking, treatment and recovery. Interventions aimed at reducing stigma towards those with addiction must overcome the frequent mischaracterization of addiction as a failure of judgment rather than a chronic, treatable illness. Prior research has demonstrated that social contact with people recovering from addiction can promote empathy and reduce stigma, but social contact is difficult to scale. Short, animated storytelling (SAS) is a novel health communication approach that scales easily because it can leapfrog barriers associated with language, culture, literacy and education levels.

Objective:

This study will investigate the effect of a globally accessible SAS video intervention aimed at reducing stigma and increasing empathy towards people with addiction. We also seek to gain insight into the mechanisms of action of SAS interventions, by measuring the contribution of sound design to the effect of the intervention.

Methods:

We will conduct a randomized controlled trial with 13,500 adult participants from the US, UK and South Africa, recruited online via Prolific Academic and randomized into three arms, per country. The two intervention arms will receive a wordless, social-contact based SAS video, one arm with soundtrack and one without. The third arm will receive an educational video about addiction. Validated questionnaires will be used to assess our primary outcome, addiction stigma, and secondary outcomes, optimism, warmth toward subject, and hopefulness, at baseline, immediately post-exposure and two weeks later.

Results:

N/A (Protocol Paper)

Conclusions:

Here, we present the protocol for an online, multi-country, randomized controlled trial. This trial is designed to measure the effect of an innovative approach to global health communication (wordless, short, animated storytelling) on addiction stigma in three global regions. These findings will inform the design of future scalable, digital health storytelling interventions for global audiences, while exploring the capacity of SAS to shift public health attitudes and perceptions. Furthermore, if effective, the intervention described here could be disseminated broadly via social media and other online platforms. Clinical Trial: The study and its outcomes were registered on 11/21/2024 with clinicaltrials.gov (NCT#06705205).