Stories help patients make health decisions, MU researcher says

Narratives used in patient decision aids should inform, not persuade

2013-06-04

(Press-News.org) COLUMBIA, Mo. –Stories often appear in health communication in order to encourage individuals to change behaviors, such as smoking or not wearing sunscreen. A University of Missouri researcher studied how stories influence patients' decision-making when behavior change is not the desired outcome of the health communication.

"Patient stories can be very persuasive, and people tend to seek stories from others when they make health decisions," said Victoria Shaffer, an assistant professor of health sciences and psychological sciences at MU. "We were concerned about whether stories were appropriate in patient decision aids because the goal of decision aids is to inform, not persuade."

Shaffer and her colleagues studied how stories included in decision aids, informational tools such as videos or brochures designed to help individuals make informed health decisions, affected individuals' choices about medical treatments for early-stage breast cancer. Women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer can opt for either a lumpectomy, which involves removing a piece of the breast tissue, and radiation therapy, or a mastectomy, which involves completely removing the breast tissue. Both treatment options have similar survival rates, which makes choosing between the two options difficult and necessitates patient decision aids, Shaffer said.

"Physicians used to be more paternalistic and would tell patients exactly what they should do," Shaffer said. "Now, health decisions more often are shared by medical providers and patients, and patients must digest a lot of complicated information in order to make the best decisions for their health. Understanding medical information can be especially challenging because much of it includes complicated terms and statistics as well as explanations of procedures."

The researchers told more than 200 healthy women to imagine that they had just received a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer. Half of the women viewed an informational video about treatment options that included statistical information as well as stories from breast cancer survivors who had undergone lumpectomies and radiation or mastectomies. The other half of the women viewed the same video, except it omitted the patient stories. The researchers asked both groups of women to report which treatment option they would choose based on the video they watched.

"Interestingly enough, we found no difference in treatment preference between the two groups," Shaffer said. "The stories didn't make the women chose one treatment option over the other. However, women seemed to like the video with stories better, and the decision aid with stories was thought to be more trustworthy and more emotional."

Shaffer said future research should examine the persuasiveness of individual stories and the contexts in which the stories appear.

"We've tried to dig deeper and characterize the particular elements of stories that might make them persuasive in one context and not persuasive in another," Shaffer said. "Hopefully, the end result would be to characterize the different elements of patients' stories and for what health communication purposes the stories should be used."

Shaffer hopes her future work will lead to a "cheat sheet" for health communicators that would outline which types of stories to include in health messages depending on the context and communication intent.

Shaffer is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Sciences in the MU School of Health Professions and in the Department of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science.

### The study, "The Effect of Narrative Information in a Publicly Available Patient Decision Aid for Early-Stage Breast Cancer," was published in Health Communication. Co-authors included Sara Tomek from the University of Alabama and Lukas Hulsey from Wichita State University.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Meeting online leads to happier, more enduring marriages

2013-06-04

More than a third of marriages between 2005 and 2012 began online, according to new research at the University of Chicago, which also found that online couples have happier, longer marriages. Although the study did not determine why relationships that started online were more successful, the reasons may include the strong motivations of online daters, the availability of advance screening, and the sheer volume of opportunities online. "These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself," said the study's lead author, ...

Potential new way to suppress tumor growth discovered

2013-06-04

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center, have identified a new mechanism that appears to suppress tumor growth, opening the possibility of developing a new class of anti-cancer drugs. Writing in this week's online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Willis X. Li, PhD, a professor in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego, reports that a particular form of a signaling protein called STAT5A stabilizes the formation of heterochromatin ...

New strategy for defeating neuroblastoma

2013-06-04

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have found a promising strategy for defeating neuroblastoma – a malignant form of cancer in children – that focuses on the so-called MYCN protein. A specific chemical molecule helps to break down MYCN, which either kills the cancer cell or makes it mature into a harmless neuron. The discovery, which is published in the scientific journal PNAS, raises hopes for new and more effective treatments in the future. Neuroblastoma is the third most common form of cancer in children. It usually develops before the age of two and affects ...

Expanding Medicaid is best financial option for states, study finds

2013-06-04

States that choose not to expand Medicaid under federal health care reform will leave millions of their residents without health insurance and increase spending, at least in the short term, on the cost of treating uninsured residents, according to a new RAND Corporation study. If 14 states decide not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as intended by their governors, those state governments collectively will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care in 2016 than they would if Medicaid is expanded. In addition, those 14 state governments would forego ...

Early-life risk factors account for racial and ethnic disparities in childhood obesity

2013-06-04

Early-life risk factors -- most of which could be changed -- appear to explain the recognized racial and ethnic disparities in the incidence of childhood overweight and obesity. In a report being published online in JAMA Pediatrics, a team of researchers report a prospective study finding that increased prevalence of obesity and overweight among black and Hispanic 7-year-olds could largely be explained by risk factors such as rapid infant weight gain, early introduction of solid foods and a lack of exclusive breast feeding. "We know that, already by the age of 2, black ...

New biomolecular archaeological evidence points to the beginnings of viniculture in France

2013-06-04

PHILADELPHIA, PA June 2013—France is renowned the world over as a leader in the crafts of viticulture and winemaking—but the beginnings of French viniculture have been largely unknown, until now. Imported ancient Etruscan amphoras and a limestone press platform, discovered at the ancient port site of Lattara in southern France, have provided the earliest known biomolecular archaeological evidence of grape wine and winemaking—and point to the beginnings of a Celtic or Gallic vinicultural industry in France circa 500-400 BCE. Details of the discovery are published as "The ...

USC report: Law dramatically reduced hospital prices for the uninsured

2013-06-04

To comply with a statewide "fair pricing" law, hospitals throughout California have significantly lowered prices to uninsured patients, with nearly all even going beyond the state mandate and offering free care to those below the poverty line. The surprising success of the legislation represents the beginnings of a safety net not in place for other states. Some 6.8 million people in California lack health insurance, often relying on hospital emergency departments for healthcare. Based on hospital billing plans, those visits can rack up huge bills that the uninsured ...

Turning point for early human diets occurred 3.5 million years ago

2013-06-04

SAN FRANCISCO (June 3, 2013) — The old saying "You are what you eat" takes on new significance in the most comprehensive analysis to date of early human teeth from Africa. Prior to about 3.5 million years ago, early humans dined almost exclusively on leaves and fruits from trees, shrubs, and herbs—similar to modern-day gorillas and chimpanzees. However, about 3.5 million years ago, early human species like Australopithecus afarensis and Kenyanthropus platyops began to also nosh on grasses, sedges, and succulents—or on animals that ate those plants. Evidence of this ...

New kind of antibiotic may be more effective at fighting tuberculosis, anthrax, and other diseases

2013-06-04

Diseases such as tuberculosis, anthrax, and shigellosis -- a severe food-borne illness -- eventually could be treated with an entirely new and more-effective kind of antibiotic, thanks to a team of scientists led by Kenneth Keiler, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University. In a research paper that will be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week beginning 3 June 2013, the team describes 46 previously untested molecules that target and disrupt an important step in the process of ...

Diet likely changed game for some hominids 3.5 million years ago, says CU-Boulder study

2013-06-04

A new look at the diets of ancient African hominids shows a "game changer" occurred about 3.5 million years ago when some members added grasses or sedges to their menus, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. High-tech tests on tooth enamel by researchers indicate that prior to about 4 million years ago, Africa's hominids were eating essentially chimpanzee style, likely dining on fruits and some leaves, said CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, lead study author. Despite the fact that grasses and sedges were readily available ...

TF-rs1049296 C>T variant modifies the association between hepatic iron stores and liver fibrosis in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease

ASH publishes clinical practice guidelines on diagnosis of light chain amyloidosis

SLAS receives grant from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop lab automation educational guidelines

Serum interleukin-8 for differentiating invasive pulmonary aspergillosis from bacterial pneumonia in patients with HBV-associated acute-on-chronic liver failure

Stories help patients make health decisions, MU researcher says

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: