Content analysis of digital media
Instrument development
Diary of health behaviors
A step further: representative sample
Experimental testing of interventions
Content analysis of digital media
Content analysis of online media coverage of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine
We explore how Serbian online media cover the topic of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (TM/CAM) practices. For this purpose, we analyze the content of articles published on popular news and lifestyle magazine websites. Relying on unconventional medicine may sometimes lead to harmful outcomes such as, for example, adverse events or neglecting official treatment. This is why we believe that media reporting on TM/CAM should be unbiased, factual, and complete so that consumers can make informed decisions. While analyzing articles, we ask whether they present a practice as a panacea (cure-all), whether they report potential harms of using it, whether they recommend talking to a healthcare provider,… We also explore whether the media use the principles of “naturalness “naturalness”, “tradition of use”, “holism”, and the like to promote TM/CAM to their readers.
Phase leader: Aleksandra Lazić
Open access research materials
Random news generator on treatment with herbs [Try in SR]
Instrument development
Pilot study: familiarity and use of TM/CAM practices and non-adherence to official medical recommendations
At this stage of the project, our goal will be to gain insight into which traditional, complementary and alternative medicine practices are the most familiar to people and which are most often used. At the same time, we wish to determine which official medical recommendations people are most likely not to adhere to. Information obtained in the content analysis, input from focus groups with stakeholders, as well as a review of scientific literature will all serve to create an initial set of diverse behaviors. Next, we will directly ask a large number of people whether they themselves have behaved in a certain way, in order to better understand which practices are the most frequent. Based on the results of this research, we will create reliable and valid psychological assessment tools to be used in subsequent phases of the project.
Phase leader: Danka Purić
Open access research materials
Open access paper on non-adherence to official medical recommendations
Preprint on use of alternative treatments
Focus group report (in Serbian)
How are we being treated? – Summary for focus groups (in Serbian)
Diary of health behaviors
A daily diary of health behaviors and their relations with ITBs and distal psychological predictors
One of the goals of the project is to gain insight into the frequency of alternative and complementary medicine practices, as well as the extent to which people do not adhere to recommended health practices on a daily basis. We will also gain important insights by analyzing factors, such as personality traits and thinking styles, that can influence our health related behaviors. We apply modern methods of data collection, such as experience sampling, which allows us a direct insight into human behavior.
Phase leader: Ljiljana Lazarević
A step further: representative sample
A step further: distal predictors, irrational beliefs, and health behaviors based on a representative national sample
The activities within the package are organized around testing our central model of the relationships between distal predictors (personality, thinking styles, and cognitive reflection) on the one hand, and TM/CAM (Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine) and NAR (Non-Adherence to Official Medical Advice) behavior on the other. This relationship is assumed to be mediated by the broadly defined domain of irrational beliefs, including illusory pattern perception, cognitive biases, personal, social and health-related irrational beliefs. We will also examine the distribution of irrational beliefs, as well as TM/CAM and NAR. These relationships are planned to be investigated by recruiting 800-1000 participants from the general population.
Phase leader: Goran Knežević
Experimental testing of interventions
Experimental studies: how inducing and reducing irrational beliefs promotes rational health behaviors
In this phase of the project the goal is to experimentally test the relationships between irrational beliefs and health behaviors. In a series of experiments we will try to induce/reduce irrational beliefs and test whether such interventions can affect health-related behaviors, such as willingness to try out or buy a certain complementary or alternative product. Also, we will test how the effects depend on some personality characteristics and the characteristic ways of thinking (cognitive styles). We plan to test potential effects of several interventions, from challenging cognitive biases, through a critical examination of the “Big Pharma” myth and the related perceptions of the “innocence” of the supplement industry, to encouraging critical examination of beliefs through the use of humor and exaggeration. The goal of this phase is to recognize potential incentives for rational decision-making in the domain of health.
Phase leader: Marija Branković