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Consumer advertising has been extremely successful at promoting psychotropic medications. Could this approach also work for psychological treatments?
To find out, investigators conducted a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial involving 344 undergraduate psychology students (mean age, 18.6; 75% female; 11% reporting a past or present psychiatric diagnosis). Participants were assigned to watch three weekly episodes of a 30-minute TV program unrelated to mental health interspersed with three 30-second ads promoting one of four different campaigns for psychological treatment (PT). The themes of the campaigns were “PT can help,” “PT works without side effects,” “many medications can help you feel better,” and “neutral.”
Three months after…