Discussion
infection, schizophrenia-spectrum disorders
INFECTION
The purpose of this study was to test the hypotheses that Spanish-speaking individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders would demonstrate increased knowledge, more realistic attitudes, and engage in safer behaviors after watching a digitally animated audio-visual novela focused on COVID-19. We found partial support for our hypotheses. Although no statistically significant differences were observed between the subjects exposed to the audio-visual novela and La CLave videos on COVID knowledge, beliefs about infection, beliefs about safety behavior, and engagement in safety behaviors, subjects who watched the audio-visual novela did report a greater likelihood of seeking a vaccine at their post-intervention assessment. This finding is consistent with several studies of Contrary to our expectation that watching the audio-visual novela would increase COVID knowledge, which in turn would increase the likelihood of obtaining a vaccine, we found that subjects who reported an increased likelihood of becoming vaccinated after watching the audio-visual novela were those who were less knowledgeable about COVID. Combined with our finding that participants in both conditions demonstrated greater knowledge about COVID over time, this result suggests that the audio-visual novela delivered in a video format may be effective in positively changing attitudes towards vaccination without necessarily increasing knowledge about the illness in question. One possibility is that watching the audio-visual novela may have prompted participants to discuss the experience with a family member, sparking a dialogue that encouraged the participant to get vaccinated. We have shown that such social influences improve treatment adherence in this population [