Improving the reach of clinical practice guidelines: An experimental investigation of message framing on user engagement

Abstract

Despite strong evidence for the efficacy of PTSD treatments, most affected individuals are not receiving these treatments, in part because they may not know that evidence-based treatments exist. The American Psychological Association published a website to disseminate information about their Clinical Practice Guideline for treating PTSD. In Study 1, Google Optimize was used in a field study to examine whether altering the subheadings to three of the website pages would increase site visitor engagement. On the main page and page describing treatments, no subheading alterations improved engagement. On the Patients and Families page, the subheading "say goodbye to symptoms" improved engagement on three outcome variables, including clicking a link to find a psychologist (though there were a small number of clicks). In a preregistered conceptual replication in a sample not actively seeking information about the PTSD guideline (N=578), results did not replicate. Results highlight challenges of evidence-based treatment information dissemination.

Keywords: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); clinical practice guideline; dissemination; replication; user engagement.

Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflict of interest: Note, B. Teachman has a significant financial interest in Project Implicit, Inc., which provided services in support of this project under contract with the University of Virginia.