In a recent study published in JID Innovations, researchers assessed health communication messages that effectively educate the public and raise intentions to get skin exams.
Background
Melanoma incidence in the United States is rising, with rates falling among younger individuals and increasing among older adults. Early diagnosis is critical for saving lives and improving outcomes since tumor thickness influences metastasis rates.
Skin self-examination is associated with early detection. Public health campaigns can help patients make more informed decisions and adopt healthier practices. Successful initiatives in Italy and the southwestern parts of England have increased thin (less than 1.0 mm) melanoma diagnoses and reduced medium-thick melanoma detection.
About the study
In the present study, researchers sought to uncover health communication techniques that improve correct visual identification of moles, understanding of melanoma cautioning indicators, dermatological self-check intentions, and positive attitudes regarding examining their skin.
Researchers utilized social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram to reach a large audience and evaluated public health communication messaging tailored to these platforms. They collected demographic information by self-reporting at the end of the survey to analyze any disparities in knowledge or behavior.
The researchers estimated the accuracy of visual mole identification by adding correct replies to 24 photographs of moles (previously ascertained as benign or malignant). They tested their understanding of melanoma cautionary indicators by adding correct verbal descriptions of melanoma in six pairs of descriptions. They calculated attitudes about skin self-checks by averaging the responses to four questions.
In four experimental settings, participants read six control-type messages or the ones that increase knowledge, self-efficacy, or both. Awareness messages aimed to enhance melanoma cautionary sign awareness and mole identification accuracy, and self-efficacy texts aimed to boost the viewer’s confidence in skin monitoring to prevent melanoma. Self-efficacy messaging included parallel comparisons of the identical body shot but with one photo featuring an easily identifiable melanoma. The researchers created a melanoma-specific indicator to ensure self-efficacy manipulation.
The researchers assigned participants to conditions based on a random arrangement of messages within each kind. Each participant read six messages: six in the control condition, three in the self-efficacy condition, three in the knowledge condition, and all three in the knowledge + self-efficacy condition. On August 10 and 11, 2021, the researchers gathered online survey data from qualified individuals recruited via the CloudResearch interface for Amazon MTurk.
Further requirements were compliance with 99% to 100% Human Intelligence Tasks and completing at least 1,000 Human Intelligence Tasks to ensure data quality. The researchers excluded individuals who performed exceptionally poorly on the proper visual recognition test or the warning flags awareness task.
Results
The study included 401 individuals with a mean age of 40 years, among whom 46% (n=183) were female. The reading of messages aimed to enhance melanoma knowledge led to participants correctly identifying a higher proportion (75% vs. 70%) of moles (average number = 18) with higher awareness of melanoma cautionary signs (average number = 5.8) than individuals with only self-efficacy-type or control message exposure, indicating their enhanced ability to distinguish between melanomas and benign moles.
Exploratory investigations demonstrated that knowledge-improving messages reduced the false positive rates, lowering the count of benign moles categorized as melanomas. The researchers found no significant influence of gender in any analysis.
Participants who read messages meant to boost their self-confidence in appropriately examining their skin showed an increased likelihood of expressing stronger intentions to undertake a skin assessment on a 1–5 scale. The team found no interactions between self-efficacy and knowledge that influenced the results. Although the effects of knowledge and self-efficacy messages were independent, combining both was the most beneficial since participants experienced the benefits of both message types without unexpected consequences from mixing the messages.
The study indicated that self-efficacy messages significantly influenced melanoma-related self-efficacy, with women having more confidence in skin inspections than males. They were also more likely to do a skin check and had more favorable sentiments regarding skin inspections. When examining malignant moles, women accurately recognized more melanomas (mean = 10) than men, while self-efficacy messages resulted in more false positives (mean = 5.2) when considering benign moles.
Based on the study findings, online messaging boosts knowledge and self-efficacy and can enhance skin self-examination accuracy and intentions. These messages, created for sites like Instagram and Facebook, can be effective health communication tools for melanoma. Knowledge communications help with mole detection and melanoma warning indicators, whereas self-efficacy messages encourage skin self-evaluation.
However, integrating both message types did not improve the effectiveness of each other, indicating the need for more research. The findings might guide large-scale public health efforts, with future research incorporating pretest-post-test design, comprehensive health history gathering, and randomized trials.