Trial reportTrials2020
Effects of the Informed Health Choices podcast on the ability of parents of primary school children in Uganda to assess the trustworthiness of claims about treatment effects: one-year follow up of a randomised trial.
Trial report in Trials, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Do studies of interventions to improve laypeople's critical thinking about health choices assess potential harms? A systematic review.BMJ open · 2026Pooled it
- A Critical Health Literacy Podcast to Counter Health Misinformation at Scale: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Trial
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- Interventions to promote critical health literacy: a scoping review.Health promotion international · 2026Article
- Efficacy of the Online Interactive Podcast Program "Living With Type 1 Diabetes to Grown-Up": A Two-Arm Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol.Journal of diabetes research · 2025Article
- Use of podcasts for health education: a scoping review.Revista brasileira de enfermagem · 2024Article
- Strategies for communicating scientific evidence on healthcare to managers and the population: a scoping review.Health research policy and systems · 2023Article
- Teaching critical thinking about health information and choices in secondary schools: human-centred design of digital resources.F1000Research · 2023Article
- Contextualizing critical thinking about health using digital technology in secondary schools in Kenya: a qualitative analysis.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
- Prioritising Informed Health Choices Key Concepts for those impacted by cancer: a protocol.HRB open research · 2022Article
- The Norwegian public's ability to assess treatment claims: results of a cross-sectional study of critical health literacy.F1000Research · 2020Article
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- Key Concepts for assessing claims about treatment effects and making well-informed treatment choices.F1000Research · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
introductionEarlier, we designed and evaluated an educational mass media intervention for improving people's ability to think more critically and to assess the trustworthiness of claims (assertions) about the benefits and harms (effects) of treatments. The overall aims of this follow-up study were to evaluate the impact of our intervention 1 year after it was administered, and to assess retention of learning and behaviour regarding claims about treatments.
methodsWe randomly allocated consenting parents to listen to either the Informed Health Choices podcast (intervention) or typical public service announcements about health issues (control) over 7-10 weeks. Each intervention episode explained how the trustworthiness of treatment claims can be assessed by using relevant key concepts of evidence-informed decision-making. Participants listened to two episodes per week, delivered by research assistants. We evaluated outcomes immediately, and a year after the intervention. Primary outcomes were mean score and the proportion with a score indicating a basic ability to apply the key concepts (> 11 out of 18 correct answers) on a tool measuring people's ability to critically appraise the trustworthiness of treatment claims. Skills decay/retention was estimated by calculating the relative difference between the follow-up and initial results in the intervention group, adjusting for chance. Statistical analyses were performed using R (R Core Team, Vienna, Austria; version 3.4.3).
resultsAfter 1 year, the mean score for parents in the intervention group was 58.9% correct answers, compared to 52.6% in the control (adjusted mean difference of 6.7% (95% CI 3.3% to 10.1%)). In the intervention group, 47.2% of 267 parents had a score indicating a basic ability to assess treatment claims compared to 39.5% of 256 parents in the control (adjusted difference of 9.8% more parents (95% CI 0.9% to 18.9%). These represent relative reductions of 29% in the mean scores and 33% in the proportion of parents with a score indicating a basic ability to assess the trustworthiness of claims about treatment effects.
conclusionsAlthough listening to the Informed Health Choices podcast initially led to a large improvement in the ability of parents to assess claims about the effects of treatments, our findings show that these skills decreased substantially over 1 year. More active practice could address the substantial skills decay observed over 1 year.
trial registrationPan African Clinical Trial Registry (www.pactr.org), PACTR201606001676150. Registered on 12 June 2016.
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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.