About this trial
This study aims to understand how parents and caregivers in the United Kingdom engage with information about childhood vaccination (routine vaccines for children and adolescents, excluding tetanus or international travel-related vaccines) and how tailored digital health tools can help address childhood vaccine misinformation.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Parents or primary caregivers of at least one child under 18 years of age in the UK who is able to answer questions about their child's vaccination status;
Those who have basic literacy in English;
Those who have regular access to a digital device and the internet; and
Those who provide informed consent and agree to participate in the trial
Disqualifiers
Those who have a visual/reading disability that could prevent their participation in or completion of the study activities
Trial design
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
AI-driven chatbot
BehavioralA tailored AI-driven chatbot designed to counter vaccine misinformation.
Social media infographic
BehavioralA UNICEF social media infographic with three "myth vs. fact" statements on vaccination.
Treatment groups
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
Parental susceptibility to misinformation about childhood vaccination
The primary outcome of this study will assess parental susceptibility to misinformation about childhood vaccination, defined as parents' ability to accurately distinguish between true and false vaccine-related information. This will be measured using ten statements on childhood vaccines, including four true and six false, rumour-related statements. Two of the rumour-related statements correspond to each of the three misinformation tactics introduced by the chatbot and the UNICEF infographic. This measure reflects parents' ability to identify misinformation containing manipulation tactics they were inoculated against and to distinguish true from false information regarding childhood vaccination. Responses will be recorded as "True", "False", or "Don't know". A composite misinformation susceptibility score will be calculated based on the number of correct responses, with higher scores indicating greater ability to identify vaccine misinformation accurately.
Secondary outcomes
Self-efficacy
Participants' self-efficacy will be evaluated in two domains: (a) confidence in making informed vaccination decisions for their children, measured with a binary response of "Yes" or "No", and (b) confidence in seeking trustworthy information about childhood vaccinations, measured on a four-point scale from "Not at all confident" to "Very confident".
Locations
Sponsors and contacts
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London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Lead sponsor
The University of Hong Kong
Collaborator
This trial is not recruiting at the moment. You can still explore other options: