| Summary: | <p>Health charity appeals are typically evaluated
solely in terms of the amount of money raised relative to
the administrative costs of the campaign. The effect of
information communicated in these appeals on receivers'
health related attitudes and behaviour has not been
investigated. What is the effect of portrayals of
suffering and helplessness on receivers who have the
portrayed health problem? Social modelling research has
shown that the experience of pain can be altered by
exposure to models coping with pain. It is plausible,
therefore, that campaign material depicting suffering and
helplessness may adversely influence receivers with pain.</p>
<p>To test this notion, four versions of a fund-raising
brochure for a fictitious chronic back pain charity were
constructed according to the principles of Protection
Motivation Theory. Pain was described as either mildly
or severely intense and debilitating (high vs. low
Threat) and pain treatment as either effective or
ineffective (high vs low Response Efficacy).</p>
<p>In study 1, 92 service club members read one
randomly selected version of the brochure and completed a
questionnaire about their willingness to help the charity
and a pledge form. Results of two 2(high vs. low Threat)
x 2(high vs. low Response Efficacy) ANOVAs indicated that
amount pledged was equivalent across the four brochures
but that subjects' willingness to help was greater for
the high Threat/low Response Efficacy brochure.
Moreover, willingness to help accounted for a significant
proportion of variance in amount pledged.</p>
<p>In Study 2, 57 chronic pain patients completed the
Coping Strategies Questionnaire before and after reading
one randomly selected version of the brochure. Results
of a 2(high vs. low Threat) X 2(high vs. low Response
Efficacy) X 2(Time 1 vs. Time 2) between subjects,
repeated measures MANOVA revealed that subjects' ability
to ignore pain appeared to be lessened if subjects read
the low Response Efficacy appeal compared to the high
Response Efficacy appeal. Results from these studies
offer preliminary evidence that health charity appeals
that effectively stimulate a desire to help in receivers
by portraying helplessness may adversely affect patients
who have the portrayed health problem.</p>
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