Abstract
Although physical activity interventions are efficacious for decreasing depressive symptomatology severity, there are several barriers to accessing treatment, supporting the need for intervention delivery in more accessible and cost-effective modes. However, individuals may respond defensively to health messages if perceiving them as threatening, and thereby fail to change behaviors. Although online, health-based interventions are effective in leading to behavior change, limited research has been conducted to identify ways in which people respond differently to online health messages. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate how individuals differ in their acceptance and interpretation of online health-related messages as threatening, as well as their desire to improve health behaviors based on their current depressive and physical activity levels. A total of 197 participants (MAGE = 36.17 years, SDAGE = 12.52 years) drawn from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) were asked to read a message regarding the importance of physical activity for health. Their defensiveness and behavior change intentionality were evaluated in relation to physical activity and depressive symptomatology. Individuals who engaged in less physical activity were more accepting of the health message, more likely to find the article threatening, agree that less exercise was related to negative health issues, and agree they should increase their physical activity. Individuals with higher self-ratings of depressive symptomatology were less accepting of the health message, found the article more threatening, and believed it to be less important to increase their physical activity levels. However, neither physical activity nor depression symptom severity were related to whether an individual would actually increase their physical activity. There was no statistically significant correlation between physical activity and depression. Explanations for these findings are provided.
Highlights
Health message delivery is key to providing vital health information and encouraging individuals to make positive health behavior changes
Given the high prevalence, lasting and widespread negative impact, and interacting sequelae of several major public health concerns, including obesity and mental health symptoms, the current study focused on a common risk factor for both, physical activity [9]
The average Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score was 5.49, which fell within the mild depression range, though there was notable variability in self-reported depression symptom severity (i.e., SD = 6.08; See Table 4)
Summary
Health message delivery is key to providing vital health information and encouraging individuals to make positive health behavior changes. Health messages that target behavior can result in negative responses if readers experience a threat to their selfidentity [1,2,3,4,5]. Finding ways to spread health messages in a manner that is well-received is vital. This is important given that these messages may be widely disseminated, via online platforms [7]. While contemporary literature suggests that gain-framed messages may be more persuasive and adaptive [8], understanding possible mechanisms among which loss-framed messages fail to promote positive behavior change may assist in identifying future intervention targets to increase the health and wellbeing of those receiving the health messages. Given the high prevalence, lasting and widespread negative impact, and interacting sequelae of several major public health concerns, including obesity and mental health symptoms, the current study focused on a common risk factor for both, physical activity [9]
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