Influence of high versus low readability level of written health information on self-efficacy: A randomized controlled study of the processing fluency effect
Tsuyoshi Okuhara, Hirono Ishikawa, Haruka Ueno, Hiroko Okada, Mio Kato, Takahiro Kiuchi
Abstract
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.