Communicating Antibiotic Resistance via Linguistic Agency Assignment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Antibiotic resistance is a serious health threat that healthcare providers must communicate to the public to decelerate its development. Prior studies have shown that linguistic agency assignment is a viable strategy to frame health threats in a way that both conveys their severity and preserves audience members’ sense of self-efficacy. In the current study, we examined this messaging strategy in the context of antibiotic resistance. Individuals’ perceptions of the threat and efficacy, behavioral intentions, fear appeals, and evaluations of the educational fact sheet were explored. Participants (N = 449) were randomly assigned to one of the eight conditions crossing threat agency (bacteria/human), temporal agency (antibiotic resistance/human) and imagery agency (taking antibiotics/antibiotics). The results revealed that individuals’ perceived severity, susceptibility, response efficacy, and self-efficacy were positively associated with their intentions to use antibiotics judiciously. The interaction effects between perceived threat and efficacy predicted behavioral intentions and the persuasiveness of the fact sheet. Relative to bacteria threat agency, human agency assignment led to significantly higher behavioral intentions. Also, readers of the human temporal agency condition reported higher persuasiveness toward the fact sheet than readers of the resistance condition. The implications, limitations, and future research directions of the study are discussed.