Assessing the Potential Use of Narrative and the Entertainment Education Strategy In an mHealth Text-Message Intervention

As the use of mobile phones for health promotion continues to grow, more work needs to be done to determine which health communication strategies are influential on mobile devices. In two studies conducted with college women in the United States, we assessed the potential for the use of narratives, a strategy found successful in a number of communication channels, in a text-message intervention. The first study consisted of seven focus groups with young women (n = 31) about their perceptions of narrative storylines in a text-message intervention about alcohol and casual sexual encounters. In a second study, we then used an experiment (n = 137) to test the potential of narrative messages to influence transportation, counter-arguing, identification, attitudes toward the intervention type, and attitudes toward the messages. Results showed that women were interested in the possibility of receiving health messages, including narrative health messages, via text message. However, the experiment found limited differences between narrative, non-narrative, and control conditions. Transportation was greater in the narrative condition than in the control, but did not significantly differ from the non-narrative condition. Counter-arguing was also greater in the narrative condition than in the non-narrative condition. Participants who viewed the narrative messages had more positive attitudes toward the messages. Based on both studies, we found that the use of narratives in text messages may be a promising strategy, but it may be a challenge to craft effective content.