Evaluation of two national health education campaigns: The Scottish experience

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Abstract
A quantitative study was conducted to investigate how a survey population responds to different approaches to health education. The main study objective was to compare the survey population's views on two TV advertisements about smoking—a positive image called Puppet and a fear-inducing one called Hospital—produced by the Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS). Overall, 394 subjects in three different age groups, i.e. 10–14, 16–19 and 40–49, were interviewed by means of a short structured questionnaire containing 18 questions. The distribution of questionnaires and interviews took place in the City of Glasgow among a sample of junior high school students, university students and workplace staff. The study findings showed that both fear-inducing and positive image campaigns achieved the same attention. Overall, recall rates for both were 74 per cent. For all participants, the fear-inducing campaign compared with positive image was preferred—52 per cent versus 16 per cent. This was even true amongst smokers—overall 40 per cent versus 10 per cent. The majority of respondents (overall 79 per cent) thought fear-inducing appeal compared with the positive image (overall 5 per cent) is likely to have more influence on stopping people smoking. The study did not demonstrate a clear cut association between demographic variables and respondents' preferences. The study findings are challenging and indicate that sometimes fear arousal may be preferred and people do not always perceive a fear-inducing message as a negative health education campaign. Further comparative investigations in this area are recommended.