ArticleEnvironmental health and preventive medicine2019
Responses to persuasive messages encouraging professional help seeking for depression: comparison between individuals with and without psychological distress.
Article in Environmental health and preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interventions to improve mental help-seeking behaviours in individuals with depressive symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- How topic content shapes LLM personality-tailored persuasion: semantic anchoring and topic stereotype effects.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- How stress influences e-cigarette health message perceptions and intentions to abstain from vaping among young adults who vape.Addictive behaviors · 2025Article
- Associations between social media engagement and young adults' subsequent onset of ENDS dependence symptoms one year later.Addictive behaviors · 2024Article
- Technology-Based Interventions to Improve Help-Seeking for Mental Health Concerns: A Systematic Review.Indian journal of psychological medicine · 2022Article
- Development of a rating scale for measuring resistance to persuasive health messages.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe persuasive effect of health messages can depend on message features, audience characteristics, and target behaviors. The objective of this study was to compare the responses to persuasive messages encouraging professional help seeking for depression between individuals with and without psychological distress.
methodsA cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted on Japanese adults aged 35-45 years, who randomly received one of three persuasive messages that aimed to promote help-seeking intentions for depression. The primary message statements were as follows: (1) depression can happen to anyone, (2) depression needs treatment, and (3) depression improves with treatment. Participants rated the messages in terms of comprehensibility, persuasiveness, emotional response, and intended future use. Help-seeking intention for depression was measured using vignette methodology before and after exposure to the messages. Eligible participants who had not received medical treatment for their mental disorders were classified as either distressed (K6 score ≥ 5, N = 824) or non-distressed (K6 score < 5, N = 1133) and analyzed.
resultsNo significant differences in comprehensibility or persuasiveness scores were observed between the messages, but the distressed group had significantly lower scores than the non-distressed group. Negative emotional responses such as surprise, anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and anxiety were significantly stronger when reading message 2, while a positive emotional response such as happiness was significantly stronger when reading message 3. These emotional responses were more prominent in the distressed than in the non-distressed group. After reading messages 1, 2, and 3, the proportions of participants in the distressed group who reported having a positive help-seeking intention increased by 35.1%, 32.1%, and 27.7%, respectively, and by 6.4%, 17.3%, and 15.2%, respectively in the non-distressed group. Multiple logistic regression analysis among participants having no help-seeking intention before exposure to the messages showed that message 2 had a significantly greater effect of increasing help-seeking intentions in the non-distressed group.
conclusionThe exposure to persuasive messages may promote help-seeking intentions for depression. It seems likely that loss framing will work better than neutral and gain framing. Meanwhile, the responses to persuasive messages may differ to some extent between distressed and non-distressed individuals, as individuals with psychological distress are likely to be more susceptible to persuasive messages than those without.
trial registrationNot applicable; this is not a report of intervention trial.
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