Assessing the Effect of Nonvisual Information Factors in Pandemic-Related Video Communication: Randomized Controlled Between-Subjects Experiment

Abstract

Background: Videos have been an important medium for providing health and risk communication to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health officials, health care professionals, and policy makers have used videos to communicate pandemic-related content to large parts of the population. Evidence regarding the outcomes of such communication, along with their determinants, is however limited.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test the impact of nonvisual information factors of video communication on 4 outcomes: trust, comprehension, intentions, and behavior.

Methods: Twelve short health communication videos related to pandemics were produced and shown to a large sample of participants, applying a randomized controlled between-subjects design. Three factors were included in the creation of the videos: the topic (exponential growth, handwashing, and burden of pandemics on the health care system), the source (expert and nonexpert), and a call to action (present or absent). Participants were randomly assigned to 1 video intervention, and 1194 valid replies were collected. The data were analyzed using factorial ANOVA.

Results: The 3 pandemic-related topics did not affect trust, comprehension, intentions, or behavior. Trust was positively influenced by an expert source (2.5%), whereas a nonexpert source instead had a positive effect on the proxy for behavior (5.7%) compared with the expert source. The inclusion of a call to action had a positive effect on both trust (4.1%) and comprehension (15%).

Conclusions: Trust and comprehension in pandemic-related video communication can be enhanced by using expert sources and by including a call to action, irrespective of the topic being communicated. Intentions and behavior appear to be affected to a small extent by the 3 factors tested in this study.

International registered report identifier (irrid): RR2-10.2196/34275.

Keywords: COVID-19; behavior; communication; comprehension; effect; experiment; intentions; pandemic; policy; risk; trust; video; video communication; visual.