Communication is a key feature of sustainable development (Richardson and Paisley, 1999). Balit (1993) also said that communication can be used to increase people's participation, provide information for change and innovation, and help in sharing knowledge and skills about certain issues.
Da Cuncha (1985) stressed that communication plays a vital role in health education. According to him, communication serves as an effective means of creating and raising the level of consciousness on health concepts among people.
One of the important health communication strategies is the packaging of information. How information is framed greatly affects the way it will be interpreted by intended target groups (Schwartz et al., 1997). According to Detweiler et al. (1999), health messages can be formulated by focusing either on potential benefits of doing the desired behavior (positively-framed) or on the potential cost of not doing the desired behavior (negatively-framed). This is technically known as message framing.
Message framing is based on Prospect Theory that was formulated by Tversky and Kahneman (Schwartz et al., 1997). Prospect theory states that people respond differently to messages depending on how these are framed. This theory also suggests that people tend to avoid risk situations when gains are involved and tend to face risk situations when losses are involved.
According to Rothman and Salovey (1997), since health behaviors frequently involve risk, it has been predicted that health promotions framed in terms of a loss would be more effective in eliciting the adoption of the promoted behavior than those framed in terms of a gain.
Health professionals are doing much effort to mobilize the power of communication to persuade individuals to adopt healthy behaviors (HSHP Homepage, 1999). Detweiler et al. (1999) added that effective communication strategies must be done in order to change people's perception of and intention to adopt health behaviors.
The Department of Health (DOH) is responsible for providing adequate and accessible health care for the people (Klemm, 1999). In the Philippines, several DOH programs have been done to promote healthy and disease-free communities. One of these programs is on smoking cessation.
The World Health Organization (1997) reported that cigarette smoking is the most preventable cause of ill health and deaths worldwide. According to the Philippine Cancer Society (2005), lung cancer has slowly gone up the list of killer diseases in the country with an estimated 15,881 deaths out of 17,238 new cases recorded in a year. Of this number, about 80 percent of the lung cancer cases were caused by smoking. It was also estimated that in the Philippines alone, there would be 20,000 deaths caused by smoking every year.
Health education projects with media coverage on tobacco use have taken place. In 1992, the Philippine Medical Association started anti-smoking workshops. In 1994, the “Yosi Kadiri” program implemented by the Department of Health was considered a highly successful anti-smoking campaign (WHO, 1997). An appraisal of health education interventions which were made to reduce the number of teenage smokers revealed that interventions have delaying effects and are difficult to implement effectively on a large scale. The appraisal also revealed that majority should be given broad-based interventions aimed at the community as a whole including mass campaign for all age groups, fiscal policy, restrictions on smoking, and bans on advertisements (Reid et al., 1995).
The findings of this study will be useful to the social marketing personnel, Department of Health, and other agencies in positioning their messages appropriately and improving their strategies to enhance people's participation in different programs. This study will be useful in intensifying a health program that would concentrate on smoking cessation and in formulating specific content materials in relation to it. Finally, this study would also provide insights to future communication students who may be interested to conduct similar studies.
Objectives of the Study
This study determined the effects of message framing and critical cognitions on smokers' intention to quit smoking. Specifically, this study aimed to:
- Compare the effectiveness of positively- and negatively- framed messages in encouraging smokers to quit smoking;
- Find out if critical cognitions of perception such as risk severity perception, risk vulnerability perception, self-efficacy, response efficacy and subjective norm affect smokers' intention to quit smoking;
- Determine respondents' socio-demographic characteristics; and
- Find out if respondents' socio-demographic characteristics influence their intention to quit smoking
Scope and Limitation of the Study
This study measured the effects of message framing and critical cognitions on smokers' intention to quit smoking. This study was conducted in Inopacan, Leyte Philippines and results may not be generalized to other areas.
Time and Place of the Study
This study was conducted from January to February 2007 in Barangays Marao and Can-angay in Inopacan, Leyte Philippines.
Results of the Study
The study was conducted to compare the effects of positively and negatively framed messages on smokers' intention to quit smoking. It also aimed to determine the effects of critical cognitions of perception on smokers' intention to quit. Furthermore, the study aimed to test if respondents' socio-demographic characteristics significantly influenced their intention to quit smoking.
