A randomised on-line survey to explore how disease labels, psychological traits and illness risk perceptions affect behavioural intentions

Objectives: Negative consequences of medical labelling have been reported in research
literature1 and differences in an individual’s intention to undertake further testing have been
shown in studies that randomly assigned participants to labelled and unlabeled hypothetical
medical scenarios2. When given information about overdiagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome
after medical scenarios, all groups (irrespective of whether the medical label was used)
reduced their intention to have follow-up tests3. What is unknown, is how an individual’s
psychological traits such the predisposition to seek medical care, emotional stability,
extraversion, and locus of control and their perceptions of risk and stigma toward the health
condition might impact a person’s decision to undertake further tests when exposed to either a
labelled or unlabeled medical scenario.