Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-12-2025

Comments

This article is the author’s final published version in Health Education Research, Volume 40, Issue 3, June 2025, Article number cyaf015.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyaf015. Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press.

Abstract

Narrative persuasion has been widely used in health communication campaigns and persuasive message design. However, several meta-analyses showed that the relative effectiveness of narratives in promoting behavior change was not consistently observed in the existing literature. With the goal of exploring boundary conditions of narrative effects, this study investigates the interaction effects of narrative persuasion and stages of change on promoting behavior change in the context of encouraging parents to vaccinate their children against human papillomavirus (HPV). Findings from an online experiment (N = 593) showed that non-narrative messages were more effective in bolstering behavioral intention than narrative messages among people who were not ready to engage in behavior change (i.e. in the precontemplation stage). In addition, among people who were thinking about changing their behavior (i.e. in the contemplation stage) or motivated to take action (i.e. in the preparation stage), both narratives and non-narratives were effective in increasing behavioral intention. This study contributes important theoretical insights to the role of narratives in health communication. Public health professionals may consider tailoring message design strategies to audience characteristics to enhance message effectiveness.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

PubMed ID

40354156

Language

English

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