Narrative Evidence Research Articles

Effects of message framing and evidence type on health information behavior: the case of promoting HPV vaccination

PurposeBased on the examination of the roles of message framing and evidence type, this study made an analysis of the promotion methods of intention and information need towards HPV vaccination.Design/methodology/approachThe study conducted a 2 (gain-framed messages vs loss-framed messages) × 2 (statistical evidence vs narrative evidence) quasi-experimental design built upon theories of message framing and evidence type. This experiment recruited college students who were not vaccinated against HPV as participants. The analysis of variance (ANOVA), the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and the independent sample T-test were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results (N = 300) indicate that (1) Loss-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than gain-framed messages. (2) Statistical evidence will lead to a more explicit information need than narrative evidence. (3) Message framing and evidence type will interact and (a) for statistical evidence, loss-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than gain-framed messages and (b) for narrative evidence, gain-framed messages will lead to a more favorable intention towards HPV vaccination than loss-framed messages. (4) Message framing and evidence type will interact and (a) for loss-framed messages, statistical evidence will stimulate more explicit information need of HPV vaccination than narrative evidence and (b) for gain-framed messages, narrative evidence will stimulate more explicit information need of HPV vaccination than statistical evidence.Originality/valueThis paper can help to further understand the important roles of message framing and evidence type in health behavior promotion. The study contributes to the literature on how health information can be well organized to serve the public health communication and further enhance the health information service.

Glenoid failure after total shoulder arthroplasty with cemented all-polyethylene versus metal-backed implants: a systematic review protocol

IntroductionAnatomical total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) is an effective treatment adopted for patients with glenohumeral osteoarthritis (OA). The glenoid component failure is the main risk that occurs in this therapeutic choice;...

Health and hostile hospitality: Understanding asylum applicants' narratives of life and health in the UK.

This paper explores how middle aged and older asylum applicants in the UK speak about health in relation to migratory experiences. It proposes biocredibility as a novel theoretical concept, through which the narratives of those migrating to the UK to seek asylum can be analysed. The UK government's hostile environments policies, which aim to make life uncomfortable for irregular migrants in the UK in order to drive down migration, have been criticised on legal, material and moral grounds. This paper adds to this critique. Narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews shows that the majority of the asylum applicants interviewed felt their health was poor and told of the difficulties of life in the UK. Stories of homelessness, poverty and exclusion dominated, underpinned by the erosion of their perceived trustworthiness and credibility through encounters with the Home Office. Particular personal experiences of social, political and economic strife in exile were narrated closely against stories of illness. The concept of biocredibility refers to, and provides a way of understanding, participants' propensity for creating narrative enclaves for pathographies as a discursive mechanism to add credibility to narratives of lived experience. In this way, visceral descriptions of biological suffering can function as a narrative resource. It does this firstly by providing material and social context for adverse health, thus allowing participants to attribute a socio-political cause for their illness. Secondly it interjects experiences of illness into life narratives, thus effectively communicating the significance of such experiences. Finally, it provides narrative evidence of individuals' autobiographical testimony. For discredited and marginalised asylum applicants, biocredibility can be understood to represent a strategy used to re-negotiate credibility and urges a critical consideration of the hostile and austere socio-political context in which it is observed.

Stock Prices, Lockdowns, and Economic Activity in the Time of Coronavirus

Stock prices and workplace mobility trace out striking clockwise paths in daily data from mid-February to late May 2020. Global stock prices fell 30 percent from 17 February to 12 March, before mobility declined. Over the next 11 days, stocks fell another 10 percentage points as mobility dropped 40 percent. From 23 March to 9 April, stocks recovered half their losses and mobility fell further. From 9 April to late May, both stocks and mobility rose modestly. This dynamic plays out across the 35 countries in our sample, with a few notable exceptions. We also find that stricter lockdown policies, both in-country and globally, drove larger declines in national stock prices conditional on pandemic severity, workplace mobility, and income support and debt relief policies. Looking more closely at the two largest economies, the pandemic had greater effects on stock market levels and volatilities in the U.S. than in China. Narrative evidence confirms the dominant – and historically unprecedented – role of pandemic-related developments for stock prices in both countries. The size of the global stock market crash in reaction to the pandemic is many times larger than a standard asset-pricing model implies.

Macroeconomic effects of exogenous tax changes in a small open economy: narrative evidence from Croatia

ABSTRACT Following the Romer and Romer narrative approach (RR), this paper investigates the effects of tax changes (personal income tax and value added tax in particular) on economic activity in Croatia. We use the narrative approach to identify exogenous tax shocks and construct a unique time series of these shocks for the 2004–2019 period. However, as Croatia is a small open economy, we adjust the original RR modelling approach by taking into account the relevance of external (demand) shocks. Our results indicate that positive tax shocks lead to a fall in private consumption and output in the Keynesian manner. We show that, compared to direct taxes, indirect taxes exercise a stronger effect on macroeconomic aggregates, but the effect of direct taxes is statistically significant throughout the whole time horizon and does not fade out. As the main contributions of this paper to the existing literature, we highlight the following: firstly, this paper sets forth the first estimates of the macroeconomic effects of tax changes based on the narrative approach in the case of a developing economy; secondly, this study extends the original RR approach by including the effects of external shocks, making this approach more suitable for the analysis of fiscal policy in small open economies.

Association between the reproductive health of young women and cardiovascular disease in later life: umbrella review

ObjectiveTo consolidate evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating the association between reproductive factors in women of reproductive age and their subsequent risk of cardiovascular disease.DesignUmbrella review.Data sourcesMedline, Embase, and...

Psychological interventions for antisocial personality disorder.

Psychological interventions for antisocial personality disorder.

Estimating nominal interest rate expectations: Overnight indexed swaps and the term structure

Abstract No-arbitrage dynamic term structure models (DTSMs) have regularly been used to estimate interest rate expectations and term premia, but are beset by empirical challenges. I propose augmenting DTSMs with overnight indexed swap (OIS) rates to better estimate the decomposition along the term structure at daily frequencies. A Gaussian affine DTSM, augmented with 3 to 24-month OIS rates, generates estimates of US expectations that closely correspond to survey-implied measures out to a 10-year horizon and are more stable across sub-samples, compared to existing models. In addition, I provide narrative evidence, in the form of an event study around US unconventional monetary policy announcements, to further exemplify the benefits from OIS augmentation.

Counter-narratives for the prevention of violent radicalisation: A systematic review of targeted interventions.

In the field of terrorism research, the violent radicalisation of individuals towards perpetrating acts of terror has been the subject of academic enquiry for some time. One core focus by social scientists has been the role of narratives in this process. Narratives have the ability to present a socially constructed version of reality which serves the interest of the narrator(s). In the context of terrorism, by depicting violence as a viable antidote to individual vulnerabilities, the narratives purported for propagandistic purposes have the potential to thwart perceptions of instrumentality (a key characteristic of violent radicalisation). In order to prevent this from happening, researchers and counter-terrorism practitioners have increasingly sought to explore the potential for counter-narratives; targeted interventions that challenge the rationalisation(s) of violence purported in dominant narratives which, in turn, reconstructs the story. However, there is overwhelming consensus in both government and academic spheres that the concept of the counter-narrative is underdeveloped and, to date, there has been no synthesis of its effectiveness at targeting violent radicalisation-related outcomes. The objective of this review was to provide a synthesis of the effectiveness of counter-narratives in reducing the risk of violent radicalisation. After a scoping exercise, the literature was identified through four search stages, including key-word searches of 12 databases, hand searches of reference lists of conceptual papers or books on the topic of counter-narratives, as well as direct contact with experts and professional agencies in the field. Studies adopting an experimental or quasiexperimental design where at least one of the independent variables involved comparing a counter-narrative to a control (or comparison exposure) were included in the review. Accounting for duplicates, a total of 2,063 records were identified across two searches. Nineteen studies across 15 publications met the inclusion criteria. These studies were largely of moderate quality and 12 used randomised control trial designs with varying types of controls. The publication years ranged from 2000 to 2018, with the majority of studies published after 2015. The studies represented a range of geographical locations, but the region most heavily represented was North America. In most cases, the dominant narrative(s) "to-be-countered" comprised of hostile social constructions of an adversary or "out-group". The majority of studies challenged these dominant narratives through the use of stereotype-challenging, prosocial, or moral "exemplars". Other techniques included the use of alternative accounts, inoculation and persuasion. In terms of risk factors for violent radicalisation, there was some disparity on intervention effectiveness. Overall, when pooling all outcomes, the intervention showed a small effect. However, the observed effects varied across different risk factors. Certain approaches (such as counter-stereotypical exemplars) were effective at targeting realistic threat perceptions, in-group favouritism and out-group hostility. However, there was no clear reduction in symbolic threat perceptions or implicit bias. Finally, there was a sparse yet discouraging evidence on the effectiveness of counter-narrative interventions at targeting primary outcomes related to violent radicalisation, such as intent to act violently. The review contributes to existing literature on violent radicalisation-prevention, highlighting the care and complexity needed to design and evaluate narrative-based interventions which directly counter existing, dominant narratives. The authors note the challenges of conducting high-quality research in the area, but nonetheless encourage researchers to strive for experimental rigour within these confines.

Public Pension Reforms and Fiscal Foresight: Narrative Evidence and Aggregate Implications

We explore the evolution of pension policy across countries and investigate the macroeconomic effects of pension structural reforms in recent decades, in particular those with implementation delays. We first document chronological changes in pension policy for 10 OECD countries between 1962 and 2017. The new data set shows that pension systems rapidly expanded between the 1960s and 1980s, followed by a wave of retrenchments since the 1990s. Structural pension reforms, which are motivated by long-run fiscal sustainability concerns, often come with significant implementation delays. We find that when structural pension retrenchments are implemented without delays, people close to retirement stay in the workforce longer to compensate for the decline in their pensions, leading to a decline in old-age pension spending. News about structural pension retrenchments in the future, however, leads people close to retirement to exit the labor market prior to the reform being implemented. As a result, government spending on old-age pensions tends to increase, rather than decrease, over the medium term. This effect is particularly prevalent for pension reforms that change retirement age and contribution years and that come with longer implementation delays.

The distributional effect of a financial crisis: Russia 1899–1905

ABSTRACT Who pays for financial crises? This paper examines the period between the major Russian financial crisis of 1899–1902 and the Russian Revolution of 1905. Using newly constructed aggregate-level data and narrative evidence, this paper finds that in response to the crisis, the Russian government and industry transferred income and wealth from ordinary workers to industrialists and investors. The recipients of transfers weathered the crisis well and profited during the recovery, while employees’ wages and wealth fell behind.

Detroit five years after bankruptcy: From coercion to consent

Critical scholarship has characterised the 2013–2014 bankruptcy of Detroit – the largest municipal bankruptcy in history – as a fiscal ‘state of exception’ which undermined the democratic foundations of urban citizenship. From this perspective, the imposition of emergency management and declaration of bankruptcy were acts of raw coercion. Drawing upon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and empirical evidence, including interviews with civic leaders shortly after the bankruptcy, a survey of public attitudes towards the bankruptcy and public records from the bankruptcy court, this article charts a different interpretation of evolving public opinion in the five years post bankruptcy. We present evidence of a popular narrative among Detroiters which retroactively depicts the bankruptcy as a necessary evil, akin to a market clearing signal at the bottom of a business cycle. Far from bankruptcy being viewed as purely coercive, we suggest that this narrative has operated as an important mechanism of civic and political consent.

The politics of exporting higher education: Russian university branch campuses in the “Near Abroad”

ABSTRACT This exploratory study represents the first attempt at examining the politics of exporting Russian higher education to the former Soviet countries. The existing numeric and narrative evidence on Russian universities’ international branch campuses (IBCs) was gathered and systematically organized in a new dataset. The study finds that the majority of IBCs operating in former Soviet countries are branches of Russian universities. While the effectiveness of these IBCs is difficult to demonstrate, the study suggests that the Russian Federation uses IBCs as a tool to retain and strengthen its political power and influence in the region. This is done through a nuanced exploration of the niche of Russian IBCs within the differentiated higher educational landscape and through the analysis of the Russian state’s political rationale for establishing and supporting Russian IBCs. The study proposes to interpret the politics of exporting Russian higher education using the frameworks of neo-imperialism and internationalization.

Exploring message framing to engage parents in early screening for autism spectrum disorder

ObjectiveWith the average age of diagnosis of autism hovering between 4 and 5 years of age, many children do not receive critical early intervention. Health information messages may be useful for increasing parents’ understanding of the importance of early autism screening. MethodsMessages promoting autism screening were presented to 282 parents in a 2 (message frame: gain, loss) x 3 (evidence type: narrative, statistical, and hybrid), online, between-participants factorial design. Participants’ involvement, affective responses, perceived threat to behavioral freedom, attitudes, and intentions to discuss screening with a healthcare provider were analyzed. ResultsLoss-framed messages that included a hybrid of first-person narrative and statistical evidence were related to favorable ratings for most outcomes. Levels of perceived threat to behavioral freedom partially mediated involvement and attitudes, in a negative direction, for loss-framed narrative messages. ConclusionResults of this preliminary study supported the inclusion of both evidence types in messages developed to encourage parents to engage in early screening for autism, and partially supported focusing these messages on the potential costs of not screening. Practice implicationsEffective use of messaging with parents could help to increase knowledge and facilitate shared decision-making with health care providers to engage in early screening for autism.

“A Radical Turn”: The Reform of the Soviet System of Public Healthcare

While analysing medical statistics from the Russian archives and the political speeches of medical administrators in the 1930s–1940s, the authors of this article discovered a tendency in the development of the healthcare system which was dramatically different from the post-revolutionary era. The reform was ideologically grounded and consistently conducted in the USSR. During this time, the healthcare system was restructured and expanded in order to treat patients in the state’s economic and military interests, which forced doctors to care more about workers’ ability to work and production costs than about people’s health. For this reason, access to free medical care was severely limited for Soviet citizens, but the range of services provided to workers in leading industries was expanded (including the establishment of medical centres in factories, sanatoriums and resorts, day nurseries, etc.). During the prewar decade, the public healthcare system expanded in terms of the number of hospitals, doctors, and patient capacity while reducing the quality of medical care caused by poor training, poor hospital facilities, lack of medicines and instruments, low-quality catering, etc. The authors reach conclusions about this seeming concern about the development of the healthcare system, comparing statistical data, optimistic official reports and revelatory narrative evidence, political debates of medical managers, and the accusations of party leaders. It is established that during the Great Terror (1937), reform critics were repressed and the assessment of state policy prohibited. In the postwar years, the reform of the 1930s was concealed by medical historians inside a ‘grand narrative’ of the past, which described the achievements of the healthcare system as aimed at saving the Soviet people’s lives and health. The only possible and universally accepted approach was a myth about a consistent policy and quality science-based medicine available to everyone. The authors maintain that discourse control over the circulation of historical evidence about prewar healthcare policy made it impossible for researchers to see the discrepancies between politicians’ statements, which were based on selective statistics, and social realities.

Methodological Decisions in Undertaking Academic Integrity Policy Analysis: Considerations for Future Research

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to share details of the methodological decisions regarding data collection that a researcher or research team may want to consider when undertaking a policy analysis. Methods: We have undertaken a meticulous documentation of our decision-making processes throughout the research design process. Results: We provide narrative evidence of what worked for us as a collaborative research team. Implications: Understanding the decisions we made throughout our research design and implementation may help other research teams, particularly those working as virtual collaborations and/or those undertaking academic integrity policy analysis.

How effective are self-management interventions in promoting health-related quality of life in people after primary treatment for breast cancer? A critical evidence synthesis.

Self-management interventions (SMIs) are designed to empower people living beyond breast cancer and help them adjust to a new normal. This structured review aimed to critically appraise and synthesise up-to-date evidence on the effectiveness of SMIs to promote health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in people with breast cancer in the post-treatment period. According to PRISMA statement guidelines, MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL were searched for peer-reviewed publications of randomised controlled trials of SMIs. Pre-specified selection criteria were applied to all retrieved records. Methodological quality and risk of bias were evaluated by using the Caldwell framework and Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias tool, respectively. Findings were integrated into a narrative critical evidence synthesis. Nine eligible trials were identified that tested nine SMIs. Five SMIs were based on cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). Eight SMIs targeted recipients' decision-making and taking-action skills. Across trials, gains in one to four domains of HRQoL were reported. SMIs predominantly promoted recipients' physical and functional well-being, regardless of methodological quality or self-management skills applied, but effect sizes were consistently small. SMIs were mainly prescribed for 12 weeks, but optimal dosage cannot be confirmed currently. SMIs informed by CBT and/or offered through recipient education were marginally more effective. Evidence derived from moderate-to-good quality trials. SMIs are potentially effective after primary treatment for breast cancer, although effect sizes are small and inconsistent across HRQoL domains. More rigorous development and testing is required, while co-production from the early development stages or at the refinement phase is recommended.

Face coverings for the public: Laying straw men to rest.

BackgroundThis article responds to one by Graham Martin and colleagues, who offered a critique of my previous publications on face coverings for the lay public in the Covid‐19 pandemic. Their paper reflects criticisms that have been made of face coverings policies more generally.MethodNarrative rebuttal.ResultsI address charges that my coauthors and I had misapplied the precautionary principle; drawn conclusions that were not supported by empirical research; and failed to take account of potential harmsBut before that, I remind my critics that the evidence on face coverings goes beyond the contested trials and observational studies they place centre stage. I set out some key findings from basic science, epidemiology, mathematical modelling, case studies, and natural experiments, and use this rich and diverse body of evidence as the backdrop for my rebuttal of their narrowly framed objections. I challenge my critics' apparent assumption that a particular kind of systematic review should be valorised over narrative and real‐world evidence, since stories are crucial to both our scientific understanding and our moral imagination.ConclusionI conclude by thanking my academic adversaries for the intellectual sparring match, but exhort them to remember our professional accountability to a society in crisis. It is time to lay straw men to rest and embrace the full range of evidence in the context of the perilous threat the world is now facing.

Efficacy and safety of pulsed radiofrequency as a method of dorsal root ganglia stimulation for treatment of non-neuropathic pain: a systematic review

BackgroundWe systematically reviewed the evidence on the efficacy and safety of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) targeted pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) versus any comparator for treatment of non-neuropathic pain.MethodsWe searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, clinicaltrials.gov and WHO clinical trial register until January 8, 2019. All study designs were eligible. Two authors independently conducted literature screening. Primary outcomes were pain intensity and serious adverse events (SAEs). Secondary outcomes were any other pain-related outcome and any other safety outcome that was reported. We assessed the risk of bias using the Cochrane tool and Risk of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I). We conducted narrative evidence synthesis and assessed the conclusiveness of included studies regarding efficacy and safety.ResultsWe included 17 studies with 599 participants, which analyzed various pain syndromes. Two studies were randomized controlled trials; both included participants with low back pain (LBP). Non-randomized studies included patients with the following indications: LBP, postsurgical pain, pain associated with herpes zoster, cervicogenic headache, complex regional pain syndrome type 1, intractable vertebral metastatic pain, chronic scrotal and inguinal pain, occipital radiating pain in rheumatoid arthritis and chronic migraine. In these studies, the PRF was usually initiated after other treatments have failed. Eleven studies had positive conclusive statements (11/17) about efficacy; the remaining had positive inconclusive statements. Only three studies provided conclusiveness of evidence statements regarding safety – two indicated that the evidence was positive conclusive, and one positive inconclusive. The risk of bias was predominantly unclear in randomized and serious in non-randomized studies.ConclusionPoor quality and few participants characterize evidence about benefits and harms of DRG PRF in patients with non-neuropathic pain. Results from available studies should only be considered preliminary. Not all studies have reported data regarding the safety of the intervention, but those that did, indicate that the intervention is relatively safe. As the procedure is non-destructive and early results are promising, further comparative studies about PRF in non-neuropathic pain syndromes would be welcomed.

Characteristics of sleep-conducive music: A narrative evidence review

Objectives: Sleep deficiency (SD) is a prevalent problem and has serious negative consequences for physical, cognitive, and psychological well-being. The use of music as a non-pharmacological sleep intervention has been proposed in several studies. A 2014 meta-analysis of 10 randomized trials evaluating the impact of music on sleep concluded that it can decrease sleep onset delay (latency) and sleep disturbances, increases sleep duration, and improves daytime dysfunction. It appears that, to-date, evidence-based guidelines for the selection and/or production of sleep-promoting music do not exist. This review addresses that gap and synthesizes available literature towards the goal of developing guidelines grounded in the evidence-based characteristics of sleep conducive music.
 Design and Results: A narrative review of research papers relevant to the topic identified evidence-based characteristics of sleep-conducive music related to tempo, rhythm, pitch, volume, and duration.
 Conclusion: This identification and compilation of evidence-based characteristics of sleep-conducive music can underpin future research that targets development and testing of specific music to promote sleep.