Confirmation Bias Towards Treatments of Depressive Disorders in Social Tagging

NCT ID: NCT03899168

Last Updated: 2019-04-02

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 520 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2014-11-14
• Study Completion Date: 2014-11-14

Brief Summary

The study examines whether people primarily want to confirm their prior attitudes in health-related information search, in an online environment using social tags for navigation. Participants were looking for information on the treatment of depression with antidepressants and psychotherapy. They were randomly assigned to two groups with either high or low credibility of the community who provides social tags, and two groups where participants' confidence in prior attitudes was heightened or lowered, and to two groups where either antidepressant tags were more popular or psychotherapy was more popular. The investigators measured attitude change toward the treatments and also navigation behavior.

Detailed Description

In health-related, Web-based information searches, people should select information in line with expert (vs nonexpert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias.

This study aimed to investigate confirmation bias in mental health-related information searches, particularly (1) if high confidence worsens confirmation bias, (2) if social tags eliminate the influence of prior attitudes, and (3) if people successfully distinguish high and low source credibility.

In total, 520 participants of a representative sample of the German Web-based population were recruited via a panel company. Among them, 48.1% (250/520) participants completed the fully automated study. Participants provided prior attitudes about antidepressants and psychotherapy. The investigators manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes when participants searched for blog posts about the treatment of depression, (2) tag popularity -either psychotherapy or antidepressant tags were more popular, and (3) source credibility with banners indicating high or low expertise of the tagging community. The investigators measured tag and blog post selection, and treatment efficacy ratings after navigation.

Conditions

Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent; Depressive Episode; Depressive Disorder, Major; Depression

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: FACTORIAL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

Social Tag Popularity

Popularity of Social Tags (antidepressants more popular vs. psychotherapy more popular)

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Social Tag Popularity

Intervention Type: OTHER

The relative size of treatment tags in a tag cloud was either larger for antidepressant treatments or psychotherapy treatments.

Confidence in Prior Attitudes

Confidence in prior attitudes (high vs. low: recalling situations in which participants were confident or uncertain about their thoughts)

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Confidence in Prior Attitudes

Intervention Type: OTHER

Participants thought back of situations in which they were either confident or doubtful about their own knowledge. This should elicit a mindset where participants are more or less confident about their own prior attitudes.

Source Credibility

Credibility of the source (tagging community: experts - many years of professional experience vs. novices - students in the first semester)

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Source Credibility

Intervention Type: OTHER

The source credibility of the community that allegedly collected and labelled the blog posts was either high or low in terms of expertise. Either experts (high credibility) or first semester students (low credibility) did allegedly collect blog posts. This was indicated by banners on top of the navigation platform in the internet browser.

Interventions

Social Tag Popularity

The relative size of treatment tags in a tag cloud was either larger for antidepressant treatments or psychotherapy treatments.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Confidence in Prior Attitudes

Participants thought back of situations in which they were either confident or doubtful about their own knowledge. This should elicit a mindset where participants are more or less confident about their own prior attitudes.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Source Credibility

The source credibility of the community that allegedly collected and labelled the blog posts was either high or low in terms of expertise. Either experts (high credibility) or first semester students (low credibility) did allegedly collect blog posts. This was indicated by banners on top of the navigation platform in the internet browser.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

Online Population - Internet Browser, Representative Sample of Germans with respect to age and region

Exclusion Criteria

No Internet Browser

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 60 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Stefan Schweiger

Researcher

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Stefan Schweiger

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien

References

Schweiger S, Cress U. How Confidence in Prior Attitudes, Social Tag Popularity, and Source Credibility Shape Confirmation Bias Toward Antidepressants and Psychotherapy in a Representative German Sample: Randomized Controlled Web-Based Study. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Apr 23;21(4):e11081. doi: 10.2196/11081.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 31012865 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

AG5-2014-11-Tagging

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id