Journal of health communication
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FDA issues Drug Safety Communications (DSCs) to alert health care professionals and the public about emerging safety information affecting prescription and over-the-counter drugs. News media may amplify DSCs, but it is unclear how DSC messaging is transmitted through the media. We conducted a content analysis of the lay media coverage reaching the broadest audience to characterize the amount and content of media coverage of two zolpidem DSCs from 2013. ⋯ Other DSC messages were reported in fewer than one-third of stories, such as the warning that impairment can happen even when people feel fully awake. The first-but not the second-zolpidem DSC generated high-profile news coverage. The finding that some messages were widely reported but others were not emphasizes the importance of ensuring translation of key DSC content.
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Comparative Study
Comparing Well-Tested Health Literacy Measures for Oral Health: A Pilot Assessment.
There has been growing national concern over the low health literacy of Americans and, coinciding with this, a growing importance placed on measuring health literacy. Health literacy is the ability to access, understand, and use information to make health decisions. ⋯ Using a survey of dental patients from safety net dental clinics in two states, we explored differences and similarities between health literacy measures as they pertained to oral health perceptions and oral self-efficacy. Findings indicated that the three health literacy measures were not interchangeable and had differential effects on data collected, which suggested differential relationships with oral health perceptions and outcomes.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Role of Health Care Provider Goals, Plans, and Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) in Preparing for Conversations About End-of-Life Care.
The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) is a planning tool representative of an emerging paradigm aimed at facilitating elicitation of patient end-of-life care preferences. This study assessed the impact of the POLST document on provider goals and plans for conversations about end-of-life care treatment options. A 2 (POLST: experimental, control) × 3 (topic of possible patient misunderstanding: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, medical intervention, artificially administered nutrition) experimental design was used to assess goals, plan complexity, and strategies for plan alterations by medical professionals. ⋯ However, preliminary evidence suggested that the utility of the POLST surfaced with provider responses to patient misunderstanding, in which differences in conditions were identified. Significant differences in goals reported as most important in driving conversational engagement emerged. Implications for findings are discussed.
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Media coverage of contentious risk issues often features competing claims about whether a risk exists and what scientific evidence shows, and journalists often cover these issues by presenting both sides. However, for topics defined by scientific agreement, balanced coverage erroneously heightens uncertainty about scientific information and the issue itself. In this article, we extend research on combating so-called information and issue uncertainty using weight of evidence, drawing on the discredited autism-vaccine link as a case study. ⋯ Postexposure issue uncertainty decreased-in other words, issue certainty increased-from preexposure levels across all conditions. Moreover, weight-of-evidence messages were associated with positive vaccine attitudes indirectly via reduced information uncertainty (i.e., one's belief that scientific opinion and evidence concerning a potential link is unclear) as well as issue uncertainty. We discuss implications for risk communication.