Open AccessInfluence of high versus low readability level of written health information on self-efficacy: A randomized controlled study of the processing fluency effect
Author(s) -
Tsuyoshi Okuhara,
Hirono Ishikawa,
Haruka Ueno,
Hiroko Okada,
Mio Kato,
Takahiro Kiuchi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
health psychology open
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.691
H-Index - 15
ISSN - 2055-1029
DOI - 10.1177/2055102920905627
Subject(s) - readability , fluency , self efficacy , psychology , intervention (counseling) , randomized controlled trial , health behavior , clinical psychology , applied psychology , social psychology , medicine , computer science , psychiatry , programming language , environmental health , mathematics education , surgery
We investigated the relationship of processing fluency of written information about exercise to participants’ perceived interest, safety, self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and behavioral intention regarding the exercise. We randomly assigned 400 men and women aged 40–69 years to control or intervention conditions. Perceived self-efficacy of performing the exercise in the intervention group (i.e. easy to read) was significantly higher than that in the control group (i.e. difficult to read) ( p = 0.04). Easy-to-read written health information may be important not only for making written health information comprehensible but also for increasing readers’ self-efficacy for adopting health-related behaviors.