No longer just pet videos and pranks, short-form videos are utilized more and more to share health information. Doctors and researchers are taking to social media networks themselves to encourage regular screenings for disease.

Among those important screenings is the pap test, recommended for women 21 and older, which collects a sample of cervical cells to check for changes that could indicate precancerous or cancerous conditions.

But how can videos best be utilized in encouraging women to get screened? Husker researcher Ciera Kirkpatrick has been exploring that question, and her latest study in Health Communication, co-authored with LaRissa Lawrie of the University of Missouri, demonstrated a key point—knowledge-based messages are more well-received than messages that focus on avoiding pain and discomfort during the procedure.

Additionally, and perhaps surprisingly, the research also found that demonstrating the speculum—an instrument used during a pap test—didn’t discourage women from getting the screening when messaging was centered on imparting knowledge about the importance of the test and how it works, rather than focusing on discomfort.

“This was one of the first studies to really focus on this idea of demonstrating medical procedures on social media, and how that can unintentionally evoke fear in the audience, which would then affect how effective the message is,” Kirkpatrick, assistant professor in journalism and mass communications, said. “The young women in our study did have more fear after seeing the speculum, but it wasn’t as high as we thought it was going to be.

“When the videos talked about possible pain and discomfort and showed the tool, that’s when the videos had the worst effect—we think it was just too much—and the likelihood of getting a pap smear went down. Whereas, if a speculum was shown while talking about the importance of pap smears and who needs them, that was actually effective.”

Kirkpatrick started thinking about how the use of medical instruments in short-form videos could affect message reception during her previous research on the use of social media to encourage pap tests. She noticed a trend of showcasing medical instruments and wondered if that could cause negative psychological effects on the viewer, especially unintentional fear.

“There are a lot of health professionals using this visual environment to share information and go ‘behind-the-scenes’ of a surgery or medical procedure, and that can be helpful because information is power and important to share if it’s credible,” Kirkpatrick said. “It was very clear that health professionals are showing the tools to educate people about what the procedure is like, and to encourage more people to have a pap smear done, but we thought, ‘maybe this could completely backfire.'”

It’s an important line of research, as the pap test is one of the most effective tools in preventing cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, cervical cancer rates decreased by more than half from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s, thanks to more education about and increased use of screening. The incidence rate has since leveled off though, likely because the number of women overdue for screening has increased recently. Research suggests that knowledge barriers—simply not being aware of the importance of screening—play a large role in the decrease in screening, especially among young women (21-29 years old).

Kirkpatrick has previously demonstrated that short-form videos can be a powerful tool for sharing health information and encouraging regular health screening. She found that 65.5% of young women reported seeking out health-related information on TikTok and a whopping 92.4% encountered it unintentionally, so it’s important to get the message and visuals right.

“Our research shows that even when health professionals have the best intentions showing a medical tool like the speculum, it can cause unintentional fear and cause avoidance, depending on what else is in the video,” Kirkpatrick said.

The findings could translate to other types of screenings and procedures, and Kirkpatrick cautioned medical providers who use social media to stick to knowledge-based messaging to avoid invoking fear.