Enhancing intentions to attend XXXX screening with a stage-matched intervention.

@entity5 @entity1
OBJECTIVE: The study evaluated the effects of a pros enhancing intervention on intention to uptake @entity5 screening. It was hypothesized that the pros enhancement session (compared to an education session) would affect intentions of preintentional @entity1 , whereas it was expected to have negligible effects among @entity1 in intentional and actional stages of the health action process approach (HAPA). Thus, we tested the HAPA using stage-matched and stage-mismatched interventions. Further, a change in decisional balance was assumed to mediate the relationship between the group assignment and intention, with age acting as the moderator. DESIGN AND METHODS: Respondents (1,436 @entity1 , aged 18-60) were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control condition and filled out questionnaires before and directly after the manipulation (in one web-based session). RESULTS: Direct effects of the group assignment were observed only among preintentional @entity1 . Across the stages, however, change in decisional balance mediated the effects of the group assignment on the intention to uptake screening. Further, among @entity1 in the preintentional stage, this mediation became significant only for @entity1 aged 35 or older. CONCLUSIONS: Although direct effects are in line with stage assumptions of the HAPA, meditational analysis among pre- and post-intentional @entity1 indicated that similar processes accounted for post-manipulation intention. Future research testing stage models should account for the mediating processes, which explain the effects of the intervention.
