Influence of high versus low readability level of written health information on self-efficacy: A randomized controlled study of the processing fluency effect

Abstract

We investigated the relationship of processing fluency of written information about exercise to participants’ perceived interest, safety, self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and behavioral intention regarding the exercise. We randomly assigned 400 men and women aged 40–69 years to control or intervention conditions. Perceived self-efficacy of performing the exercise in the intervention group (i.e. easy to read) was significantly higher than that in the control group (i.e. difficult to read) ( p = 0.04). Easy-to-read written health information may be important not only for making written health information comprehensible but also for increasing readers’ self-efficacy for adopting health-related behaviors.