Confirmation Bias Towards Treatments of Depressive Disorders in Social Tagging
April 1, 2019 updated by: Stefan Schweiger, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien
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
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.
Study Overview
Status
Completed
Conditions
Intervention / Treatment
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.
Study Type
Interventional
Enrollment (Actual)
520
Phase
- Not Applicable
Participation Criteria
Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.
Eligibility Criteria
Ages Eligible for Study
18 years to 60 years (Adult)
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Yes
Genders Eligible for Study
All
Description
Inclusion Criteria:
Online Population - Internet Browser, Representative Sample of Germans with respect to age and region
Exclusion Criteria:
No Internet Browser
Study Plan
This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.
How is the study designed?
Design Details
- Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
- Allocation: Randomized
- Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
- Masking: Double
Arms and Interventions
Participant Group / Arm |
Intervention / Treatment |
|---|---|
|
Experimental: Social Tag Popularity
Popularity of Social Tags (antidepressants more popular vs. psychotherapy more popular)
|
The relative size of treatment tags in a tag cloud was either larger for antidepressant treatments or psychotherapy treatments.
|
|
Experimental: Confidence in Prior Attitudes
Confidence in prior attitudes (high vs. low: recalling situations in which participants were confident or uncertain about their thoughts)
|
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.
|
|
Experimental: Source Credibility
Credibility of the source (tagging community: experts - many years of professional experience vs. novices - students in the first semester)
|
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.
|
What is the study measuring?
Primary Outcome Measures
Outcome Measure |
Measure Description |
Time Frame |
|---|---|---|
|
Attitudinal Preference Score of Psychotherapy over Antidepressants
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. Prior to and after information search phase in the study.
|
The investigators constructed a questionnaire to measure the attitudinal preference of psychotherapy over antidepressant treatments of depressive disorders.
On a 7-point likert scale, participants rate the degree of efficacy of antidepressant and psychotherapy treatments, on 8 items (e.g.
item 1: "Antidepressants/Psychotherapy are/is effective in treating depression.").
An index score for the degree of preference of psychotherapy is calculated by subtracting the average antidepressants score from the average psychotherapy treatment rating score for each participant.
To analyse if attitudinal preferences predict the number of clicks on social tags and blog posts, the treatment preference score is entered in a logistic regression as predictor.
Ratings are inquired at the beginning of the 1 hour study (prior attitudes), and at the end of the study (attitude change).
|
Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. Prior to and after information search phase in the study.
|
|
Count of clicks on antidepressant and psychotherapy treatment tags
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. During the information search phase in the study.
|
Both, psychotherapy and antidepressant tags can be clicked on, and are counted respectively.
An index score will be calculated for each participant subtracting the sum of clicks on antidepressants from the sum of clicks on psychotherapy, to analyse if clicks are associated with the treatment preference measured by prior treatment attitudes.
|
Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. During the information search phase in the study.
|
|
Count of clicks on antidepressant and psychotherapy treatment blog posts
Time Frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. During the information search phase in the study.
|
Both, psychotherapy and antidepressant blog posts can be clicked on, and are counted respectively.
An index score will be calculated for each participant subtracting the sum of clicks on antidepressants from the sum of clicks on psychotherapy, to analyse if clicks are associated with the treatment preference measured by prior treatment attitudes.
|
Through study completion, an average of 1 hour. During the information search phase in the study.
|
Collaborators and Investigators
This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Stefan Schweiger, Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien
Publications and helpful links
The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.
Study record dates
These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.
Study Major Dates
Study Start (Actual)
November 14, 2014
Primary Completion (Actual)
November 14, 2014
Study Completion (Actual)
November 14, 2014
Study Registration Dates
First Submitted
March 27, 2019
First Submitted That Met QC Criteria
April 1, 2019
First Posted (Actual)
April 2, 2019
Study Record Updates
Last Update Posted (Actual)
April 2, 2019
Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria
April 1, 2019
Last Verified
March 1, 2019
More Information
Terms related to this study
Additional Relevant MeSH Terms
Other Study ID Numbers
- AG5-2014-11-Tagging
Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)
Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?
YES
IPD Plan Description
Individual level data will be anonymized and appended to the publication at the Journal of Medical Internet research.
IPD Sharing Time Frame
Data will become available upon publication of the study until May 2019.
IPD Sharing Access Criteria
The completely anonymized data will be available for researchers and the public who access the published paper at the Journal of Medical Internet research.
IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type
- ANALYTIC_CODE
Drug and device information, study documents
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product
No
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product
No
This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.