Effects of Communication Source and Racial Representation in Clinical Trial Recruitment Flyers

ABSTRACT

The current study was designed to examine effective message strategies that can be employed in designing mediated communication messages to improve clinical trial research participation. In the study, a total of 300 participants completed an online experiment in which they responded to five different clinical trial recruitment advertisements whose information sources varied in their credentials and race. Overall, peer-featured ads in which previous clinical trial participants communicated their prior experience in clinical trial participation, compared to expert-featured ads in which medical doctors communicated information about clinical trials, led to higher message and topic relevance, higher message credibility, more favorable attitudes toward clinical trials, and higher intentions to participate in future clinical trials. Further, there was a statistically significant interaction among source credentials, racial match (between source and participant), and participant’s race on message and topic relevance such that both White and Black participants rated ads from racially mismatched peers highly effective (greater message and topic relevance); however, for doctor featured ads, White participants reported higher message and topic relevance for racially matched (White doctor) ads, and Black participants reported higher message and topic relevance for racially mismatched (White doctor) ads. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Disclosure statement

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Notes

1. The results of repeated measures ANOVAs with trust in doctors as a covariate (continuous variable) are F(1, 297) = 6.20, p = .013, η² = .02 for message relevance, and F(1, 297) = 4.64, p = .032, η² =.02 for topic relevance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences grant UL1TR002345 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).