Confirmation Bias Towards Treatments of Depressive Disorders in Social Tagging

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien

Status: Completed

Conditions: Depressive Disorder, Major; Depression; Depressive Episode; Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent

Treatments: Other: Confidence in Prior Attitudes; Other: Social Tag Popularity; Other: Source Credibility

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03899168

AG5-2014-11-Tagging

Details and patient eligibility

About

The study examines whether people primarily want to confirm their prior attitudes in health-related information search, in an online environment using social tags for navigation. Participants were looking for information on the treatment of depression with antidepressants and psychotherapy. They were randomly assigned to two groups with either high or low credibility of the community who provides social tags, and two groups where participants' confidence in prior attitudes was heightened or lowered, and to two groups where either antidepressant tags were more popular or psychotherapy was more popular. The investigators measured attitude change toward the treatments and also navigation behavior.

Full description

In health-related, Web-based information searches, people should select information in line with expert (vs nonexpert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias.

This study aimed to investigate confirmation bias in mental health-related information searches, particularly (1) if high confidence worsens confirmation bias, (2) if social tags eliminate the influence of prior attitudes, and (3) if people successfully distinguish high and low source credibility.

In total, 520 participants of a representative sample of the German Web-based population were recruited via a panel company. Among them, 48.1% (250/520) participants completed the fully automated study. Participants provided prior attitudes about antidepressants and psychotherapy. The investigators manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes when participants searched for blog posts about the treatment of depression, (2) tag popularity -either psychotherapy or antidepressant tags were more popular, and (3) source credibility with banners indicating high or low expertise of the tagging community. The investigators measured tag and blog post selection, and treatment efficacy ratings after navigation.

Enrollment: 520 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 60 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Online Population - Internet Browser, Representative Sample of Germans with respect to age and region

Exclusion criteria

No Internet Browser

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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520 participants in 3 patient groups

Social Tag Popularity

Experimental group

Description:

Popularity of Social Tags (antidepressants more popular vs. psychotherapy more popular)

Treatment:

Other: Social Tag Popularity

Confidence in Prior Attitudes

Experimental group

Description:

Confidence in prior attitudes (high vs. low: recalling situations in which participants were confident or uncertain about their thoughts)

Treatment:

Other: Confidence in Prior Attitudes

Source Credibility

Experimental group

Description:

Credibility of the source (tagging community: experts - many years of professional experience vs. novices - students in the first semester)

Treatment:

Other: Source Credibility