Influenza 2020/2021

NCT04546854 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: BSREC 167/19-20
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 200
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

As part of the fight against COVID-19, the UK government has announced its most comprehensive flu campaign to date (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/most-comprehensive-flu-programme-in-uk-history-will-be-rolled-out-this-winter). This should not be surpising: every year NHS hospitals experience an overwhelming number of influenza cases, and COVID-19 increases this concern. As in previous years, the flu vaccine is free at the point of care for people 65 and over. New this year is that later in the season the vaccine will be made available free at the point of care for people 50 and over. However, if people refuse to take the vaccine this comprehensive program cannot benefit public health. The degree to which vaccine hesitancy is expressed varies across characteristics of the vaccine considered and the time and place it is offered, and across characteristics of the person's perceptions of complacency, convenience, confidence, calculations, and communal responsibility, i.e. the "5Cs". Information campaigns can be used to influence all 5Cs, and public facing information is often a necessary component of public health campaigns that may also include structural components. Largely, information campaigns can be viewed as a type of educational intervention. Educational interventions may fall short of what is needed to alter people's intentions to vaccinate where they focus on system 1 rational thinking processes and neglect system 2 automatic thinking processes. To be more effective, public health messages must be tailored to align with the "beliefs, attitudes, and motivations" of the very people they intend to influence. Fact-led educational interventions to increase parents' intentions to vaccinate their children are particularly ineffective where more subtle content opposes the recipient's deep-seated values. In a different context, recycling behaviour, previous research demonstrated that messages aligned with people's deep-seated values (i.e. the moral foundations that underlie political ideologies) are more likely to promote desired behavioural intentions than unaligned messages. The present research expands the scope of previous research in two ways. First, rather than investigating parental attitudes towards vaccination, the investigators will look at people's intentions to self-vaccinate. Second, the investigators will explore the effectiveness of messages aligned with the moral foundations that underlie individual's political ideologies on their intentions to be vaccinated.

Conditions

Influenza Vaccine

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Intentions to take up the seasonal influenza vaccination

  Participants rate their intentions to take up the seasonal influenza vaccination on a 7-point likert scale, from strongly disagree (=1) to strongly agree (=7).

  1 day

Study Arms (2)

Conservative - Binding Appeal

EXPERIMENTAL

Behavioral: Appeals

Liberal - Individulizing Appeal

EXPERIMENTAL

Behavioral: Appeals

Interventions

Appeals BEHAVIORAL

Written text motivating participants to take up the seasonal influenza vaccination

Conservative - Binding Appeal; Liberal - Individulizing Appeal

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 50 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Resident in England
• Age 50+ years old, inclusive
• The age criteria is set at 50+ years old, because this is the age group currently being advised by Public Health England to seek the flu jab as soon as possible this season. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/most-comprehensive-flu-programme-in-uk-history-will-be-rolled-out-this-winter).

You may not qualify if:

• Not a resident in England
• Age less than 50 years old

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Warwick: lead

Study Sites (1)

University of Warwick

Coventry, United Kingdom

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Influenza, Human

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Respiratory Tract Infections; Infections; Orthomyxoviridae Infections; RNA Virus Infections; Virus Diseases; Respiratory Tract Diseases

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: DOUBLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT, INVESTIGATOR
• Purpose: OTHER
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Assistant Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 5, 2020
• First Posted: September 14, 2020
• Study Start: September 21, 2020
• Primary Completion: September 21, 2020
• Study Completion: September 21, 2020
• Last Updated: September 25, 2020

Record last verified: 2020-09

Locations

GB (1)