Trial reportJournal of health communication2017
Theorizing Foreshadowed Death Narratives: Examining the Impact of Character Death on Narrative Processing and Skin Self-Exam Intentions.
Trial report in Journal of health communication, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Interventions for promoting habitual exercise in people living with and beyond cancer.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- A Missing Mechanism of Effect: How People Who Habitually Replot Stories React Differently (Or Not so Differently) to Melanoma Narratives.Journal of health communication · 2025Trial
- Does it matter if a story character lives or dies?: a message experiment comparing survivor and death narratives.Psychology & health · 2022Trial
- Using infographics to improve trust in science: a randomized pilot test.BMC research notes · 2021Trial
- Improving Adherence to Colorectal Cancer Screening: A Randomized Intervention to Compare Screener vs. Survivor Narratives.Journal of health communication · 2019Trial
- The importance of structural elements in narrative persuasion: Using the narrative immersion model to promote melanoma prevention.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2025Article
- Validating Cross-Modal Measures for Comparative Research: Message Veracity, Novelty, and Memorability.Psychology & marketing · 2023Article
- Digital interventions for promoting sun protection and skin self-examination behaviors: A systematic review.Preventive medicine reports · 2022Review
- Intention to Screen for Hepatitis C Among University Students: Influence of Different Communicative Scenarios.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Death Narratives, Negative Emotion, and Counterarguing: Testing Fear, Anger, and Sadness as Mechanisms of Effect.Journal of health communication · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Narratives are common in health campaigns and interventions, with many depicting individuals battling a particular illness or disease. Past research has focused primarily on the form and effects of survivor stories, but considerably less attention has been devoted to stories in which 1 or more of the central characters passes away. The goal of the current study was to compare the relative persuasive impact of survivor and death narratives in influencing skin prevention behaviors and to test narrative mediators that might explicate underlying mechanisms of effect. To that end, adults (N = 635, M age = 32.43 [SD = 11.23]) were randomly assigned to 1 of 6 narrative intervention conditions in an online message experiment. Participants read 1 of 2 stories about a person with melanoma (Rusty or Diane) that was manipulated as a narrative depicting the survival, death, or foreshadowed death of the main character. Foreshadowed death narratives increased intentions to perform a skin self-exam (SSE), a relationship that was mediated by narrative transportation and perceived SSE benefits. The results support the central postulate of narrative transportation theory and the utility of using foreshadowed death narratives in communication-based interventions designed to increase SSE frequency.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.