2.6. Outcomes and Moderating Variables
SECONDARY, GIST
Within the scope of this study, the outcomes “knowledge (verbatim and gist)”, “readability/comprehensibility”, “acceptance”, and “relevance”, which are established in the field of health communication, were collected using a questionnaire (see Verbatim and gist knowledgeVerbatim knowledge was assessed using nine items and referred to the ability of the respondents to express correctly the absolute frequencies of the benefits and harms of antibiotic treatment, placebo treatment, or of no treatment at all. Each answer was coded as correct (1) or incorrect (0) and a sum score was calculated (see Furthermore, gist knowledge was surveyed to determine the extent to which respondents understood the importance of the differences between the benefits and harms of antibiotic treatment, placebo, or no treatment at all. Five multiple-choice questions were used here; the correct answers were coded with 1, the incorrect answers were coded with 0, and a sum score was calculated (see Readability/ComprehensibilityThe readability and comprehensibility referred to how the recipients assessed the plausibility of the contents, texts, and tables [AcceptanceAcceptance was defined as the attitude of the participants to the fact box. The evaluation comprised questions about the attractiveness of the design, the trustworthiness of the information, and the recommendation of the fact box using a four-stage interval scale (see RelevanceRelevance was defined as the assessment of whether the information was considered helpful. This outcome was surveyed by a single question, using a four-stage interval scale (3 = extremely helpful, 2 = helpful, 1 = hardly helpful, and 0 = not at all helpful) (see The questionnaire had been piloted in a previous focus group study [Moderating variablesBased on the literature, the level of education was chosen as a moderating variable for the purpose of following sensitivity analysis. Participants with a lower secondary and a secondary school certificate were assigned to the group with a lower level of education. Participants with a higher school certificate or an academic degree were assigned to the group with a higher level of education.