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The Effect of a Protective Message on Critical Evaluation of Fake News

NCT05030883 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 400

Last updated 2025-09-05

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Background: Disinformation has become an increasing societal concern, especially due to the speed that news is shared in the current digital era. In particular in the healthcare sector disinformation can lead to serious casualties, as the current COVID-19 crisis clearly shows.

Objective: The main aim of this study was to experimentally examine the effects of information about the source's and a displayed protective warning message on users' critical evaluation of news items, as well as the perception of accuracy of the news item.

Methods: A 3(unreliable versus reliable versus no identified source) x 2 (protective message: with versus without) between subject design has been conducted among 307 participants (mean age = 29 years, SD = 10.9 years).

Conditions

  • Disclosure of Protective Message

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Source of news

The main intervention was the source of the news that was shown to participants

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Tilburg University

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-05-10
Primary Completion
2019-06-20
Completion
2019-07-01

Countries

  • Netherlands

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05030883 on ClinicalTrials.gov