NCT06705205

Short, Animated Storytelling (SAS) for Addiction Stigma Reduction

Short, Animated Storytelling Video to Reduce Addiction Stigma: Protocol for a Multi-country, Online, Randomized, Controlled Trial With 13,500 Participants

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 13,397 (actual)
• Sponsor: Stanford University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 49 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Stigma towards people with addiction is a well-documented problem that negatively impacts help-seeking, treatment and recovery. Social contact with people recovering from addiction can promote empathy and reduce stigma, but social contact is difficult to scale. Short, animated storytelling (SAS) is a novel health communication approach that scales easily because it can leapfrog barriers associated with language, culture, literacy and education levels. This study will investigate if a SAS video intervention can be used to reduce stigma, boost optimism and hope, and increasing empathy towards people with addiction. The study will also explore mechanisms of action of SAS interventions, by measuring the contribution of sound design to the effect of the intervention.

Conditions

• Social Stigma Towards People With Addiction

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	SAS video	The intervention is a short, animated storytelling video, with soundtrack, aimed at reducing addiction stigma.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-07-03
• Primary completion: 2025-08-22
• Completion: 2025-08-22
• First posted: 2024-11-26
• Last updated: 2025-09-03

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States