Clinical trial NCT03908034: Consumer Motivation for Disease Prevention
Official title: Consumer Motivation for Disease Prevention
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Risk Reduction
Lead sponsor: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Toronto
First posted: 2019-04-09
Enrollment: 200
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Intervention model description: The study has a 2 (presence of uncontrollable factor: yes vs. no) ✕ 2 (Anticipated regret induction: yes vs. no) between-subject design. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the 4 between-subject conditions.

There is also a within-subject variable. Each subject will respond to 10 rounds of decision task with 5 different levels of overall disease risk reduction brought by the removal of X. The 5 levels of risk reduction are: (i) Removal of X reduces disease risk from 60% to 50% ; (ii) 60% to 40%; (iii) 60% to 30%; (iv) 60% to 20%; (v) 60% to 10%.
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: The purpose of this study is to examine (1) how the causal structure of a disease influences people's disease prevention decisions; and (2) how the causal structure of a disease interacts with people's regret anticipation in determining their disease prevention decisions.

Detailed description: People sometimes have to deliberate on whether or not to remove a risk factor that may potentially cause a disease in the future. When a controllable risk factor (say, X) is the only factor that causes a disease, the decision to remove it may simply depend on the probabilistic relationship between X and an outcome, as well as the cost of removing X. However, little is known when other factors that are out of the decision-maker's control are also present. The main question being asked here is how does the presence of such uncontrollable factors change people's decision to remove X.

Specifically, the investigators consider two cases: a disease caused by a single controllable risk factor (say X) and a disease caused by two risk factors -- a controllable factor (X) and an uncontrollable factor (Y). In both cases, the removal of X can result in a meaningful reduction in overall disease risk. It is hypothesized that even when the magnitude of overall risk reduction brought by the removal of X is the same in the two cases, people would have a lower motivation to remove X in the latter case.

The investigators also examine how the presence of an uncontrollable risk factor interacts with the respondents' regret anticipation to influence their decision to remove X. In the context of the current research, regret anticipation could take one of the following forms: (a) feel regretful if one decides not to remove X and later develops the disease (b) feel regretful if one decides to remove X but still develops the disease. The investigators expect (a) to moderate the effect of uncontrollable risk factor on motivation to remove X.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* students enrolled in marketing courses at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Exclusion Criteria:

* None

Primary outcomes:
measure: Decision to remove X
timeFrame: Day 1: When responding to the questionnaire
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
measure: Anticipated regret
timeFrame: Day 1: When responding to the questionnaire.
measure: Judgment of whether the removal of X is an opportunity to improve earnings
timeFrame: Day 1: When responding to the questionnaire.
measure: Sense of control over the final outcome
timeFrame: Day 1: When responding to the questionnaire.
Locations:
city: Hong Kong
country: Hong Kong
facility: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Study officials:
affiliation: Chinese University of Hong Kong
name: Wing Man Yeung, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Binder S, Nuscheler R. Risk-taking in vaccination, surgery, and gambling environments: Evidence from a framed laboratory experiment. Health Econ. 2017 Dec;26 Suppl 3:76-96. doi: 10.1002/hec.3620.