The psychological effects of vasectomy.
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In the present study, the persuasive communication of HIV test counselors as cues to action in clients' decisions to practice safer sex was examined. Results indicated that contrary to expectations, hypothesized relationships inherent in the Health Belief Model (HBM) were not supported for the pre-HIV test survey. However, clients' perceptions of the severity of HIV/AIDS, their susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, the benefits of and barriers to practicing safer sex, and self-efficacy were correlated with compliance with safer-sex recommendations reported on the post-HIV test survey. Intriguing results revolved around communication cues to action. HIV test counseling session transcripts were content analyzed to determine the persuasive messages used by HIV test counselors that may have cued clients' health beliefs and safer-sex behaviors. The inductively-derived coding scheme emphasized the complexity of the interpersonal interaction taking place during counseling sessions. Results indicated that in some cases, use of certain persuasive strategies was related to short-term adoption of safer-sex recommendations. These findings bolstered the argument for a move toward reconceptualizing the HBM by centralizing communication cues to action.
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This research proposes and tests a model of the relationship between organizational factors, campaign design elements, and campaign quality of communication campaigns. It is the first quantitative study to test these relationships across many organizations. The context for the study was AIDS education and outreach campaigns in Uganda, during a time of successful decrease in the spread of HIV infection. Ninety-one organizations were surveyed. Since only 14% of the organizations collected exposure or outcome data, the study focused on the factors affecting campaign quality. Quality was examined by measuring goal specificity, execution quality, and message quality. The results show that financial resources, professional training, participation of outreach workers in planning the campaign, and audience participation in planning and executing the campaign were key organizational variables affecting the quality of the campaigns. The important campaign design elements affecting campaign quality were conducting research, using multiple channels, targeting only a few groups, and pretesting messages. The results have import for campaign planners, managers of organizations conducting campaigns, and funders. In addition, it is vital that organizations collect exposure and outcome data in the future to provide feedback on each campaign.
Exposure is often cited as an explanation for campaign success or failure. A lack of validation evidence for typical exposure measures, however, suggests the possibility of either misdirected measurement or incomplete conceptualization of the idea. If whether people engage campaign content in a basic, rudimentary manner is what matters when we talk about exposure, a recognition-based task should provide a useful measure of exposure, or what we might call encoded exposure, that we can validate. Data from two independent sources, the National Survey of Parents and Youth (NSPY) and purchase data from a national antidrug campaign, offer such validation. Both youth and their parents were much more likely to recognize actual campaign advertisements than to claim recognition of bogus advertisements. Also, gross rating points (GRPs) for a campaign advertisement correlated strikingly with average encoded exposure for an advertisement among both youth (r = 0.82) and their parents (r = 0.53).
Referring to literature in sociology, mass communication, and public health, we conceptualize and operationally define "health social capital" and "individual health social capital" and then posit and test a model for its development in response to a public health media campaign. The campaign evaluated here was designed to stimulate behaviors that would provide a more supportive social environment for children and youth, an environment which we consider to be richer in aggregate health social capital. The association model of advertising was employed to explain the development of individual health social capital measures of awareness, attitude, and behavior. With cross-sectional data (1998, n = 614; 1999, n = 1087; 2000, n = 1388), we examine the results for changes in awareness, attitude, and behavior over time and the significant links between these dependent variables and media campaign exposure. The results show significant increases in awareness and attitude, but not in behavior. Structural equation modeling revealed different patterns of influence for newspaper and TV campaign exposure.
Numerous studies show that exposure to entertainment-education-based mass media campaigns is associated with reduction in risk behaviors. Concurrently, there is a growing interest in comparing the cost-effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions taking into account infrastructural and programmatic costs. In such analyses, though few in number, mass media campaigns have fared well. Using data from a mass media communication campaign in the low HIV prevalence states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi in Northern India, in this article we examine the following: (1) factors that mediate behavior change in different components of the campaign, comprising a TV drama, reality show for youth audiences, and TV spots; (2) the relative impact of campaign components on the behavioral outcome: condom use; and (3) the cost-effectiveness calculations arising from this analysis. Results suggest that recall of the TV spots and the TV drama influences behavior change and is strongly associated with interpersonal communication and positive gender attitudes. The TV drama, in spite of being the costliest, emerges as the most cost-effective component when considering the behavioral outcome of interest. The analysis of the comparative cost-effectiveness of individual campaign components provides insights into the planning of resources for communication interventions globally.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effectiveness of prosocial messages is compromised by poor design. A receiver-oriented content analysis (N = 246) was used to assess college students' perceptions of the message quality, production quality, and persuasiveness of advertisements and prosocial advertisements regarding alcohol. After providing background information, respondents rated a series of video clips on a variety of criteria guided by the Message Interpretation Process (MIP) model. Results indicated that prosocial advertisements were rated as higher in quality than were commercial advertisements overall and on logic-based criteria, but prosocial advertisements nevertheless had weaker relationships to viewers' beliefs and reported behaviors relevant to drinking alcohol. Heavier drinkers rated commercial advertisements more positively than did lighter/nondrinkers. They were less skeptical of persuasive messages and rated prosocial advertisements lower in effectiveness and commercial advertisements higher in effectiveness.
This paper reports a therapy study that aims to promote communicative drawing in a group of seven people with severe and long-standing aphasia. Therapy was conducted on individual and group bases over 12 weeks and entailed a range of techniques which are described in some detail. Treatment was evaluated using a novel generative drawing assessment in which subjects were required to draw absent items in response to photographic and conversational cues. Pre- and post-therapy assessments of untreated skills, such as comprehension, naming and gesture, were also conducted. The results indicated that, as a group, the subjects' drawing improved. Unchanged performance on the other assessments indicated that the gains were specific to the content of therapy and could not be attributed to spontaneous recovery. Pre- and post-therapy interviews with carers (i.e. relatives and close friends of the individuals) suggested that the effects of therapy were also being felt in the home. These results have important implications for therapy with people with severe aphasia.
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This paper argues for the relevance of cognitive modeling and cognitive architectures to cyberpsychology. From a human-computer interaction point of view, cognitive modeling can have benefits both for theory and model building, and for the design and evaluation of sociotechnical systems usability. Cognitive modeling research applied to human-computer interaction has two complimentary objectives: (1) to develop theories and computational models of human interactive behavior with information and collaborative technologies, and (2) to use the computational models as building blocks for the design, implementation, and evaluation of interactive technologies. From the perspective of building theories and models, cognitive modeling offers the possibility to anchor cyberpsychology theories and models into cognitive architectures. From the perspective of the design and evaluation of socio-technical systems, cognitive models can provide the basis for simulated users, which can play an important role in usability testing. As an example of application of cognitive modeling to technology design, the paper presents a simulation of interactive behavior with five different adaptive menu algorithms: random, fixed, stacked, frequency based, and activation based. Results of the simulation indicate that fixed menu positions seem to offer the best support for classification like tasks such as filing e-mails. This research is part of the Human-Computer Interaction, and the Broadband Visual Communication research programs at the National Research Council of Canada, in collaboration with the Carleton Cognitive Modeling Lab at Carleton University.
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This article presents a school-based, peer-led programme aiming at smoking prevention among Greek adolescents. The intervention was based on the social influence approach, and utilized 28 students' personal sensitization for the development of audio-visual material, which was presented to the remaining students of the two experimental schools (n = 440). The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed by means of experimental and control (n = 217) students' completion of a questionnaire prior to, immediately after and 3 months after the intervention. The Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (MANOVAR) showed declines in the experimental group's smoking behaviour and intention to smoke immediately after, but not 3 months after the intervention, and more lasting changes in this group's knowledge of addiction and anti-smoking attitude. These effects were not observed for the control group. Programme evaluation and the implementation of health education programmes in the Greek school curriculum are discussed in the light of these findings.
The study aimed to evaluate the BBC's 'Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit' campaign's success in achieving public awareness of the need for obesity prevention, and putting over its message of healthy eating and increased physical activity. Demographic factors associated with awareness of the campaign were assessed. Data were collected from a national representative British sample as part of the ONS Omnibus survey in March 1999. Questions included weight and height, recognition of the campaign name, recall of the content of the campaign, and participation in the campaign registration scheme. More than half of the respondents had heard of the campaign and 30% recalled the healthy lifestyle messages, although fewer than 1% registered to participate in the scheme. Awareness of the campaign was high in all socio-economic groups, but memory for the healthy lifestyle message was significantly poorer in those with lower levels of education and from ethnic minority groups. Disappointingly, awareness was also no higher in overweight than normal weight respondents. The results strongly support the effectiveness of the campaign in publicizing the issue of increasing prevalence of obesity and the need for lifestyle change, but suggest that different approaches might be needed to maximize participation from groups most in need of lifestyle change.
The study aimed to assess the characteristics and reported behaviour change of participants in the BBC's 'Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit' (FFFF) campaign. A postal questionnaire survey was sent to a random sample of 6000 adults registering with the FFFF campaign at the start of the campaign and 5 months later. Demographic characteristics, weight, eating behaviour and activity patterns were assessed. In total, 3661 respondents completed the baseline questionnaire and 2112 (58%) of these completed a follow-up evaluation questionnaire 5 months later. The majority of evaluation participants were women and classified as 'overweight' or 'obese'. Participants reported significant reductions in weight, and in fat and snack intake, and significant increases in exercise levels, and in fruit, vegetable and starch intake during the 6 months of the campaign. These effects remained significant if non-responders were assumed to have made no change. These results show that mass-media campaigns might make a contribution to weight control at the population level, but particular subgroups such as men and people under 25 may require specifically targeted campaigns. In addition, whilst such campaigns may initially attract obese people, they may be more likely to drop out of the campaign than overweight and normal weight individuals.
Iron supplementation is probably the best available option to effectively address iron deficiency in pregnant women and young children because it can be targeted specifically to these high-risk groups. However, technical and practical barriers exist: limited information on the effectiveness of supplementation interventions, side effects that affect compliance, and supply/distribution constraints. An innovative approach to addressing these constraints is the use of sprinkles of powdered, microencapsulated ferrous fumarate that can be added directly to any semi-liquid food without changing their taste or consistency. This technique has been tested in initial trials in Ghana and found to be as effective as iron drops. Another approach to improve the effectiveness of iron interventions is through information, education and communication (IEC) programs. These interventions can help modify consumer behavior in some cases, but in some countries, geographic location, variations in language and population size can make the cost of IEC programs very high. IEC strategies in Indonesia aimed at increasing demand for iron supplements by systematic dissemination of specific messages, improving the quality and variety of tablets, increasing the availability and access to supplements by engaging the commercial sector, enrolling traditional birth attendants and other community volunteers in selling supplements. Key issues to be addressed include clarifying optimal starting points and duration of supplementation interventions--based on individual status or population prevalence, defining hemoglobin and ferritin cutoffs at which treatment should be instigated and evaluating the effectiveness of intermittent supplementation with multiple micronutrients.
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OBJECTIVE: To describe sexual interaction and HIV-related communication in Rwandan couples and to examine their relationship to HIV testing and condom use. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of a longitudinal cohort. METHODS: In 1988, women recruited for an epidemiological study of HIV, and interested male partners, received confidential HIV testing and counseling. Two years after enrollment, 876 women reporting one steady partner in the past year completed a questionnaire addressing sexual and HIV-related communication, sexual motivation and violence in the partnership. RESULTS: Men control sexual decision making, and coercive sex and violence between partners is not uncommon. HIV-positive women were more likely to report coercive sex and less likely to have discussed their test results with their partner. Women with HIV-positive partners were more likely to report being physically abused. Condom use was more common if the man had been previously tested, and if women reported discussing or negotiating condom use. HIV-negative women with untested or seronegative partners were the least likely to use condoms or to discuss or attempt to negotiate condom use. CONCLUSIONS: Participation of the male partner is crucial for successful HIV risk reduction in couples. HIV testing and counseling of couples has beneficial long term effects on condom use and HIV-related communication. Couple communication is associated with condom use, but only when the discussion is specific (sexually transmitted disease risks and using condoms). Seronegative women with untested partners are at increased risk for HIV as they are the least likely to discuss or attempt to negotiate condom use.