Procedures
Rexulti, death, nausea, tremors, depressed, depressive symptoms, depression
An online survey was developed on Qualtrics, a secure online software that allows one to create questionnaires and then share them with participants through a link on social networks (eg, Facebook and WhatsApp). The link was spread to personal contacts, to Facebook groups, and on the Facebook profile of the research group owing to sponsored advertising. The questionnaire was published on November 15, 2021, and remained open for 20 days, until December 5, 2021. Qualtrics has a randomizer tool that allowed participants to be randomly assigned to one of the three conditions (DTCA video vs text vs DTCA video+text) immediately after having acknowledged participating in the study. There were no missing data because participants were forced to answer each question before going on to the subsequent question.Immediately after the manipulation, we ran one manipulation check for the text and one for the video, using two questions each. When the condition included both the video and the text, the manipulation check included all the questions presented below. For the video, one question asked the participant to choose among three possible answers to best describe what they had learned (ie, “The woman has never taken an antidepressant before even though she has been depressed for months”; “The woman has already taken an antidepressant, but she still feels depressed”; “The woman has already taken an antidepressant that has helped to cure the depression”). The second question asked the participant to choose the correct option among the following possibilities: “Rexulti is a drug that does not need a medical prescription,” “Antidepressants do not have any contraindications for subjects aged less than 25 years,” “Rexulti increases death and ictus risk in older patients.” The two questions for the text asked if depression has “just physical symptoms,” “just mental symptoms,” “both physical and mental symptoms,” and if the most common symptom of depression is “negative thoughts,” “tremors,” or “nausea.” A total of two questionnaires were discarded after an unsatisfactory check result.After the manipulation check, the participants answered items on depression knowledge, depression literacy, and empowerment. At the end of the survey, we thanked participants for their time and availability and we debriefed them. Three links with detailed information about depression were provided for participants interested in the topic. We also explained to participants who had seen the video that it was just an example used for the research and that the information may not be true in Italy. Moreover, we specified that it was not possible to buy antidepressants in Italy without a medical prescription and we suggested in case of depressive symptoms to contact a doctor. Authors’ emails were provided in case of doubts or questions.Before the questionnaire went to the field, a brief pilot test was run to collect qualitative data on the intelligibility of words used in the questions, clarity, and understandability of the questions. The pilot test was conducted on six people and revealed that the terms used in formulating the questions were unambiguous and that the questions were formulated in a clear and understandable way.A pretest was performed to assess if the materials of the manipulation were easily comprehensible to everyone and clear. Both the video and the text were sent to four people of different ages and educational levels (woman, 80 years old with a low educational level; woman, 50 years old; man, 20 years old who was a university graduate; and man, 50 years old). The participants judged the material as clear and understandable.