The Effect of a Protective Message on Critical Evaluation of Fake News

• Sponsor: Tilburg University (Other)
• Overall Status: Completed
• CT.gov ID: NCT05030883
• Collaborator: (none)
• Enrollment: 400
• Location: 1
• Arms: 3
• Actual Duration (Months): 1.7
• Patients Per Site Per Month: 234.1

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

Background: Disinformation has become an increasing societal concern, especially due to the speed that news is shared in the current digital era. In particular in the healthcare sector disinformation can lead to serious casualties, as the current COVID-19 crisis clearly shows.

Objective: The main aim of this study was to experimentally examine the effects of information about the source's and a displayed protective warning message on users' critical evaluation of news items, as well as the perception of accuracy of the news item.

Methods: A 3(unreliable versus reliable versus no identified source) x 2 (protective message:

with versus without) between subject design has been conducted among 307 participants (mean age = 29 years, SD = 10.9 years).

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Disclosure of Protective Message	Behavioral: Source of news	N/A

Study Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Actual Enrollment: 400 participants
• Allocation: Randomized
• Intervention Model: Factorial Assignment
• Masking: Single (Participant)
• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Official Title: The Effect of Source Type and Protective Message on the Critical Evaluation of News Messages on Facebook: An Experimental Study in the Netherlands.
• Actual Study Start Date: May 10, 2019
• Actual Primary Completion Date: Jun 20, 2019
• Actual Study Completion Date: Jul 1, 2019

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Experimental: unreliable source In this condition participants receive a news message from an unreliable source	Behavioral: Source of news; The main intervention was the source of the news that was shown to participants
Experimental: reliable source In this condition participants receive a news message from an reliable source	Behavioral: Source of news; The main intervention was the source of the news that was shown to participants
Experimental: no source In this condition participants receive a news message without a source	Behavioral: Source of news; The main intervention was the source of the news that was shown to participants

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

1. Critical evaluation of source and news [immediately after exposure, 5 minutes]

   questionnaire

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years and Older
• Sexes Eligible for Study: All
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Inclusion Criteria:

• Facebook user

• older than 18

• Dutch

Exclusion Criteria:

• younger than 18 years

• no facebook

Contacts and Locations

Locations

	Site	City	State	Country	Postal Code
1	Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences	Tilburg		Netherlands

Sponsors and Collaborators

• Tilburg University

Investigators

None specified.

Study Documents (Full-Text)

None provided.

More Information

Publications

None provided.

• Responsible Party: Frans Folkvord, Assistant professor, Tilburg University
• ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05030883
• Other Study ID Numbers: TiU-1
• First Posted: Sep 1, 2021
• Last Update Posted: Sep 1, 2021
• Last Verified: Aug 1, 2021

• Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement: Undecided
• Plan to Share IPD: Undecided
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Device Product: No

Study Results

No Results Posted as of Sep 1, 2021