Trial reportBMC public health2025
A randomized controlled trial of empathetic refutational learning with health care professionals.
Trial report in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effects of debunking interventions on endorsement of alternative medicine: a randomized controlled experiment in Peru.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Piloting short empathetic refutational interview modules in clinical training: Two UK studies.PEC innovation · 2026Article
- Implementing Large Language Models to Support Misconception-Based Collaborative Learning in Health Care Education.JMIR medical education · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHealth care professionals are in a key position to promote vaccinations. However, consulting vaccine-hesitant patients can be difficult, especially when patients bring up anti-vaccination arguments. Whereas prior research has identified essential skills for refuting anti-vaccination arguments, little is known about how to acquire these skills. Our aim was to determine if empathetic refutational interview text scenarios help health care professionals build confidence and abilities in countering anti-vaccination arguments.
methodsWe conducted an online randomized controlled experiment with UK and Finnish health care professionals in which we randomly assigned them to an empathetic refutational interview group (n = 167) or a control group (n = 180). Participants in the empathetic refutational interview group were presented with examples of the empathetic refutational interview approach, which encompasses the identification of attitude roots, affirmations, corrections of misconceptions, and provision of facts. Control group participants received a standard facts-based approach. We examined posttest use of empathetic refutational interview techniques and pre- and posttest perceived difficulty of refuting anti-vaccination arguments.
resultsParticipants in the empathetic refutational interview group used more empathetic affirmations than control group participants. The empathetic refutational interview group and the control group did not differ significantly in how often they explicitly tried to identify attitude roots, correct misconceptions, and provide vaccination facts, nor in how difficult they found anti-vaccination arguments to be to refute.
conclusionsBrief empathetic refutational interview text scenarios can increase health care professionals' use of affirmations when discussing vaccines with patients. Additional materials are needed to efficiently teach refutations of attitude roots.
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.