Testing active choice for screening practitioner’s gender in endoscopy among disinclined women: An online experiment

Abstract

Objectives A large proportion of women have a preference for a same-gender endoscopy practitioner. We tested how information about practitioner gender affected intention to have bowel scope screening in a sample of women disinclined to have the test. Methods In an online experimental survey, women aged 35–54 living in England who did not intend to participate in bowel scope screening (N = 1060) were randomised to one of four experimental conditions: (1) control (practitioner’s gender is unknown), (2) opposite-gender (male practitioner by default), (3) same gender (female practitioner by default), and (4) active choice (the patient could choose the gender of the practitioner). Intention was measured following the interventions. Results Of 1010 (95.3%) women who completed the survey, most were White-British (83.6%), and working (63.3%). Compared with control, both active choice and same-gender conditions increased intention among disinclined women (9.3% vs. 16.0% and 17.9%; OR: 1.85; 95% CI: 1.07–3.20 and OR: 2.07; 95% CI: 1.23–3.50). There were no differences in intention between the opposite-gender and control conditions (9.8% vs. 9.3%; OR: 1.06; 95% CI: 0.60–1.90) or the active choice and same-gender conditions (16.0% vs. 17.9%: OR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.55–1.46, using same gender as baseline). Conclusions Offering disinclined women a same-gender practitioner, either by choice or default, increased subsequent intention, while an opposite gender default did not negatively affect intention. Reducing uncertainty about gender of practitioner could positively affect uptake in women, and should be tested in a randomised controlled trial.

Testing the decoy effect to increase interest in colorectal cancer screening

“…Those who had indicated that they would probably or definitely have the test, were redirected to the study briefing and final survey page where they were thanked for their participation. Those who stated that they would definitely or probably not do the screening test were individually randomised, with equal probability, to one of two conditions [ 35 ].…”

Testing verbal quantifiers for social norms messages in cancer screening: evidence from an online experiment

“…Specifically, we wanted to compare verbal quantifiers to a precise numerical norms message and a control condition without any information about normative screening behaviour. In line with previous experimental studies [17, 22, 23], we focused on individuals who initially expressed little or no interest in BSS, to minimise ceiling and social desirability effects often associated with self-reported intention measures. [24] We also wanted to simulate a targeted intervention aimed at non-attenders who are in most need of an effective behavioural intervention.…”

Offering disinclined people the choice between different screening appointments: a randomised online survey

“…We report the reduced models in the tables and the full models in the supplementary table. In line with previous experiments with similar designs, we used complee case analysis and did not impute missing data for two reasons (Stoffel et al, 2018;2019a, 2019b, 2019cvon Wagner et al, 2019). Firstly, as in the experiment all the questions were mandatory, there were no single missing responses, but rather survey abandonment.The analysis of the response behaviour did not reveal specific abandonment behaviours.…”

“…A randomised online experiment was designed to measure the effect of appointment choice set size on intention to confirm the screening appointment. Following previous studies, in 2018, a survey company (ResearchNow) invited men and women from their online panel to take part in a survey on BSS if they were aged 35-54 years, living in England, without a previous diagnosis of bowel cancer (Stoffel et al, 2018(Stoffel et al, , 2019a(Stoffel et al, , 2019b2019c;von Wagner et al, 2019).…”

“…Those who intended to take part were excluded from the survey in order to i) test the effects of the manipulation among those who do not intend to take part and ii) minimise ceiling and social desirability effects often associated with self-reported intention measures (Michie & Abraham, 2004;Stoffel et al, 2018;Stoffel et al, 2019a;Stoffel et al, 2019b;Stoffel et al, 2019c;von Wagner et al, 2019).…”