Nudges to Improve Health Behaviors That Limit COVID-19 Spread

Medical College of Wisconsin

Status: Terminated

Conditions: COVID-19; Health Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: Nudge

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04379375

PRO00037864

Details and patient eligibility

About

This investigation is a randomized intervention trial that evaluates behavioral nudges (BN) to increase hand washing behavior and subsequently reduce COVID-19 spreading to a targeted high-risk patient population based in Wisconsin.

Enrollment: 45 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Age 18 years or older
• Provision of signed and dated informed consent form
• Willingness to comply with all study procedures and lifestyle considerations and availability for the duration of the study
• Has at least 1 risk factor associated with COVID-19 documented in their electronic medical record
• Followed by (i.e., actively receiving care) from targeted MCW specialties (Internal Medicine, OBGYN, Surgery)
• Access to necessary resources for participating in a technology-based activities (i.e., internet access + mobile phone or computer to complete online survey)
• Maintains a personal address where study materials can be shipped and where participant lives full time

Exclusion criteria

• Previous COVID-19 diagnosis or positive COVID-19 test result documented in their electronic medical record
• Current participation in another treatment or intervention study associated with COVID-19
• Previous documented Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder diagnosis in their electronic medical record
• Non-English speaker
• Patients hospitalized or incapacitated at onset of potential enrollment
• No access to electronic platform with internet (e.g., smartphone, tablet, computer)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

45 participants in 2 patient groups

Inertia

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants simply receive and subsequently have "default" access (i.e., readily and immediately available) to handwashing (HW) materials. This condition will functionally serve as a control comparison. As the term implies, inertia capitalizes on minimizing effort necessary (e.g., going to the grocery store) to engage in HW behavior in one's personal environment.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Nudge

Anchoring

Experimental group

Description:

Involves once again providing "default access" to HW materials as above, but adds an explicit written cue to wash hands at a rate of (15) times per day, which is placed directly on the soap dispenser. The stimulus is intended to deliberately prime participant thinking (and subsequent behavior) towards a higher reference point that "overshoots" a desired target rate of 10+ daily HWs.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Nudge