The Power of Curiosity: Leveraging Curiosity to Motivate People to Complete Health Risk Assessments

Intention Clinical Trial

Official title:

The Power of Curiosity

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT01875913
• Other study ID #: F24176-101
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: June 7, 2013
• Last updated: August 29, 2016
• Start date: June 2013
• Est. completion date: November 2013

Study information

• Verified date: August 2016
• Source: Harvard University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The investigators will work with one of Vitality's partner corporations to test whether curiosity can motivate employees to follow through on their virtuous intentions and complete their annual health risk assessment (VHR). Employees will receive email messages that contain either a curiosity-inducing question or a standard encouragement message. The investigators predict that presenting people with curiosity-arousing questions will make them more likely to complete a health risk assessment, as compared to standard messages.

Description:

The vast majority of adults express the desire and intention of engaging in healthy behaviors—exercising, losing weight, getting a colonoscopy—but then fail to do so. This has massive individual and societal costs. This research tests a promising intervention to increase the likelihood that an adult will follow through on their health-related intentions. Curiosity can be a powerful motivator and can cause people to engage in new behaviors (Tomkins 1962; Silvia 2006); however, curiosity has not yet been used as an intervention to help people follow-through on their intentions. In this project, the investigators target employees who have failed to complete their annual Vitality Health Review (VHR) and test whether curiosity can be used to induce the employees to complete their VHR. The VHR is a medical questionnaire that can help individuals understand medical risk factors they may be prone to. The investigators provide employees with a question and inform them that they will see the answer upon completion of their VHR. The investigators hypothesize that the curiosity-inducing messages will cause employees to follow through on their intention to complete their VHR.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 10095
• Est. completion date: November 2013
• Est. primary completion date: November 2013
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Employees at Vitality's partner's worksites that are in Vitality database

• Must have email address on file

Exclusion Criteria:

• Employees that have already completed their VHR by June 11, 2013

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Single Blind (Subject), Primary Purpose: Health Services Research

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Exploratory Behavior
• Intention

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Curiosity Message
Participants will receive email messages that contain one of 8 curiosity-inducing questions. The message will tell participants that they will receive a message with the answer after they complete their VHR (health review that can be completed online).
• Standard Message
Participants will receive email messages that contain "standard" language encouraging them to complete their VHRs (health review that can be completed online).

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Harvard Kennedy School	Cambridge	Massachusetts

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Harvard University

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Previous VHR Completion during 2012-2013	Whether employee completed their VHR the previous year	On or before July 12, 2013	No
Other	Social Atmosphere at Worksite	Measured by post-intervention survey with questions about how frequently employees at worksite interact and discuss non-work and Vitality-related matters	On or before August 12, 2013	No
Other	Curiosity Type	For participants who receive "curiosity" messages, indicates which curiosity message they received.	On or before July 12, 2013	No
Primary	Completion of VHR	Whether the participant completes his/her VHR or not	Measured one month after first message (July 12, 2013)	No