The Power of Curiosity: Leveraging Curiosity to Motivate People to Complete Health Risk Assessments

Study Overview
=================
Brief Summary
-----------------
The investigators will work with one of Vitality's partner corporations to test whether curiosity can motivate employees to follow through on their virtuous intentions and complete their annual health risk assessment (VHR). Employees will receive email messages that contain either a curiosity-inducing question or a standard encouragement message. The investigators predict that presenting people with curiosity-arousing questions will make them more likely to complete a health risk assessment, as compared to standard messages.

Detailed Description
-----------------
The vast majority of adults express the desire and intention of engaging in healthy behaviors-exercising, losing weight, getting a colonoscopy-but then fail to do so. This has massive individual and societal costs. This research tests a promising intervention to increase the likelihood that an adult will follow through on their health-related intentions. Curiosity can be a powerful motivator and can cause people to engage in new behaviors (Tomkins 1962; Silvia 2006); however, curiosity has not yet been used as an intervention to help people follow-through on their intentions. In this project, the investigators target employees who have failed to complete their annual Vitality Health Review (VHR) and test whether curiosity can be used to induce the employees to complete their VHR. The VHR is a medical questionnaire that can help individuals understand medical risk factors they may be prone to. The investigators provide employees with a question and inform them that they will see the answer upon completion of their VHR. The investigators hypothesize that the curiosity-inducing messages will cause employees to follow through on their intention to complete their VHR.

Official Title
-----------------
The Power of Curiosity

Conditions
-----------------
Intention, Exploratory Behavior

Intervention / Treatment
-----------------
* Behavioral: Curiosity Message
* Behavioral: Standard Message


Participation Criteria
=================
Eligibility Criteria
-----------------
Inclusion Criteria: Employees at Vitality's partner's worksites that are in Vitality database Must have email address on file Exclusion Criteria: Employees that have already completed their VHR by June 11, 2013

Ages Eligible for Study
-----------------
Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
-----------------
All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
-----------------
Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
=================
How is the study designed?
-----------------

Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Standard Message<br>Participants will receive email messages that encourage them to complete their VHR. | Behavioral: Standard Message<br>* Participants will receive email messages that contain standard language encouraging them to complete their VHRs (health review that can be completed online).<br>|
| Experimental: Curiosity Message<br>Participants receive email messages containing curiosity-inducing questions. The messages tell the participants that they will receive the answer to the question after they complete their VHR. | Behavioral: Curiosity Message<br>* Participants will receive email messages that contain one of 8 curiosity-inducing questions. The message will tell participants that they will receive a message with the answer after they complete their VHR (health review that can be completed online).<br>|

What is the study measuring?
-----------------
Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Completion of VHR | Whether the participant completes his/her VHR or not | Measured one month after first message (July 12, 2013) | 

 Terms related to the study
=================
Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
-----------------
Curiosity, Intention, Follow Through