Positive Education Through Social Media to Reduce Negative Stereotypes Towards Old Age: a Quasi-experimental Study
Conditions: Ageism
Sponsor: Universidad de Zaragoza

Positive education through social media to 
reduce negative stereotypes towards old 
age: a quasi-experimental study 
ID: U1111-1311-9233 
Date: 15/05/2023 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

1. Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan. Results 
 
The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Hospital Clínico San 
Carlos in Madrid (reference number C.I. 23/054-E_TFM) and was conducted during the 
months of February and March of 2023. 
This was a quasi-experimental prospective study that used snowball sampling to 
recruit participants. The study was publicized through Instagram accounts of two authors 
with a combined following of over 100,000. Of the initial 250 participants, 109 completed 
the study. Inclusion criteria included: 
1. Being over 18 years old. 
2. Participating in both the PRE and POST questionnaires of the Negative 
Stereotypes towards Old Age Questionnaire (CENVE). 
3. Following the Instagram posts related to the intervention for 3 days or more. 
 
Instruments 
The evaluation instruments for this study included two online Google Forms 
questionnaires (See in Supplementary Material) designed for pre- and post-assessment. 
The pre-assessment questionnaire consisted of two sections: 16 items on 
sociodemographic data and 15 items from the Negative Stereotypes towards Old Age 
Questionnaire (CENVE) (Blanca et al., 2005). This instrument assesses individuals' 
stereotypes towards the older population using a Likert-type response scale ranging from 
1 to 4 (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Somewhat Disagree, 3 = Somewhat Agree, 4 = 
Strongly Agree). It provides a total score and three dimensions: Health Dimension, Social 
Motivation Dimension, and Character/Personality Dimension. The maximum score on 
this questionnaire is 60 points (indicating a high presence of negative stereotypes 

towards old age), and the minimum score is 15 points (indicating a low presence of such 
stereotypes). 
Procedure 
Both at the initial and final questionnaire stages, that is, before and after the 7-
day intervention period of reading the posts, was administered the questionnaire 
CENVE. Additionally, the post-intervention evaluation included a new question that 
gathered data on the frequency with which the participant had followed the intervention 
(0-2, 3-4, and 5-7 days). 
Intervention 
The intervention consisted of daily positive messages about aging posted on an 
Instagram account (@laetapaplateada), created specifically for this study, and was 
conducted over the course of a week. Examples included "The ability to make decisions 
improves with age" and "Emotional regulation improves with age" (David, 2017). These 
posts were accompanied by their respective author references . 
 
Statistical Analysis 
A paired samples t-test was conducted to compare each subject's total score on 
the CENVE scale before and after the intervention. To determine if certain 
sociodemographic variables were associated with the presence of negative stereotypes 
towards old age, the scores obtained in the PRE questionnaire for each study group 
were analyzed using descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing. This analysis was 
performed using Student's t-test (for variables with 2 categories) or ANOVA (for variables 
with more than 2 categories). The analysis of the "sex" variable was omitted due to low 
male participation. 

Furthermore, to examine if various demographic variables were associated with 
pre-post differences in the presentation of negative stereotypes towards older people, a 
Repeated Measures ANOVA was performed for each of the sociodemographic variables 
collected in the questionnaires: sex, age, marital status, place of residence, cohabitants, 
religion, education level, occupation, frequency of contact with older people, area of 
contact with older people, cohabitation with older people, relationship with grandparents, 
significance level of that relationship, knowledge of any of their grandparents' loss of 
abilities (physical/mental), frequency of viewing intervention posts on Instagram, etc. 
All tests were analyzed using the statistical software Jamovi 2.3.21. Data for the 
assessment of negative stereotypes towards old age were collected in February and 
March 2023. 
 
Results 
A total of 109 individuals responded to both questionnaires and participated in 
the intervention for three days or more. Among them, 97.2% were women, and 2.8% 
were men, residing in Spain (95.4%) .The participants' ages ranged from 22 to 69 years, 
with an average age of 44.63 years (standard deviation of 11.23). Given that the 
frequency of contact with older adults can influence stereotypes towards this population, 
we investigated this contact, finding that nearly half of the subjects (49.5%) had daily 
interactions with older adults, primarily within the family setting (72.5%). Additionally, 
37.6% of the participants lived with someone in this age group. Regarding their 
grandparents, 99.1% of the participants reported knowing at least one grandparent, with 
51.9% describing a significant relationship where the grandparent actively participated 
in their upbringing. Furthermore, 74.3% of the subjects were aware that at least one 
grandparent had experienced a decline in physical and/or mental capacity, with more 
than half of these cases (53.1%) involving both physical and mental declines. 

However, none of the sociodemographic variables collected in the questionnaires 
appeared to be associated with the pre-intervention questionnaire scores or with the 
differences in scores before and after the intervention. 
The primary objective of this study was to analyze whether positive education 
about aging disseminated through social media could reduce negative stereotypes 
towards older adults. To this end, we collected data on the participants' engagement with 
the intervention. It was found that 59.6% of them followed the intervention for 3-4 days, 
while 40.4% did so for 5-7 days. The results demonstrated that after the 7-day 
intervention, during which positive messages about aging were posted on the social 
media platform Instagram, participants had lower scores on the Negative Stereotypes 
towards Old Age Questionnaire (CENVE) than before the intervention. Hence, 
individuals who completed the study exhibited fewer negative stereotypes towards aging 
post-intervention. 
2. Informed consent 
All participants, prior to engaging in the study and just before filling out the form, had to 
check a box indicating their acceptance of the informed consent. Without checking it, 
they could not access the initial survey. Additionally, the study underwent an ethics 
committee review,