NCT04859114

Effect of Presenting Survival Information as Text or Pictograph During Periviable Birth Counseling

Effect of Presenting Survival Information as Text or Pictograph During Periviable Birth

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 1,052 (actual)
• Sponsor: Medical College of Wisconsin · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 18 Years – 45 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Women recruited from the internet will be put in a hypothetical situation of being in labor at 22 weeks of pregnancy, and presented with information on the likelihood of survival and chance of disability for babies born at this gestational age. Participants will be randomized to receive this outcome data in one of three formats: as text-only, in a static pictograph, or in an iterative pictograph. Participants will also be randomized to seeing the chance of survival as 30% or 60%. Participants were then asked to choose between comfort care and intensive care in this situation. Participants' religiosity, value of the sanctity of life, and health literacy were also assessed.

Detailed description

A recent study by Kidszun et al. (2020) concluded that for mothers placed in a hypothetical situation of choosing between comfort care and intensive care at 22 weeks gestation, treatment choice was not influenced by the chance of survival. Specifically, there was no difference in treatment choice between moms who were told the baby would have a 30% chance of survival and moms who were told the baby would have a 60% chance of survival. The study was conducted using a written vignette that included a paragraph on the chance of survival and the chance of disability among the survivors. In this study, we will adapt the vignette the Kidszun et al. (2020) team used, and provide it to an internet-based sample of women. In this vignette, participants will be put in a hypothetical situation of being in labor at 22 weeks of pregnancy, provided a description of the treatment choices of intensive care or comfort care, and provided data on outcome information at this gestational age. After reading the vignette, participants will be randomized to view either: a repeat of the text information on outcome data, a static pictograph, or an iterative pictograph. Participants will also be randomized to seeing the chance of survival as 30% or 60%, making this a 2 (chance of survival) x 3 (data presentation format) between-subjects experiment. After viewing a repeat of the outcome information, participants will be asked to choose between intensive care or comfort care for their hypothetical child. We will also collect information on values, religiosity, health literacy, subjective numeracy, a subjective probability estimate, and demographics.

Conditions

• Premature Birth

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Format of outcome data presentation	Outcome data is provided to participants as either text-only, a static pictograph, or an iterative pictograph.
BEHAVIORAL	Displayed chance of survival	In the outcome data provided to participants, they view either a 30% or 60% chance of survival.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-06-07
• Primary completion: 2021-06-22
• Completion: 2021-06-22
• First posted: 2021-04-26
• Last updated: 2023-11-24
• Results posted: 2023-11-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States