A review of risk perception measurement in tobacco control research.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the characteristics of risk perception measures used in tobacco control research and to evaluate whether these measures incorporate measurement suggestions put forward by risk perception measurement scholars. DATA SOURCES: Three databases (PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science) were searched in March 2015 for published English language peer-reviewed articles measuring tobacco risk perceptions (n=2557). The search string included terms related to tobacco products, perceptions and risk. STUDY SELECTION: Three coders independently coded abstracts for initial inclusion. In total, 441 articles met the initial inclusion criteria, and 100 were randomly selected for a full-text review. DATA EXTRACTION: A codebook was developed and tested through a training phase. Three coders independently coded the characteristics of each article (eg, population), multi-item measure (eg, validity) and item (eg, likelihood, affect, health outcome). Fifty-four articles, 33 measures and 239 items were coded. DATA SYNTHESIS: Twenty-one articles had a multi-item risk perception measure, and 12 articles had one risk perception item. Many of the items asked about general health outcomes (36%), did not specify the person for whom risk was being judged (44%; eg, self, average person) or did not specify the conditions of use (27%; eg, the product used, intensity of use).
CONCLUSIONS: There is little consistency across risk perception measures in tobacco research. There may be value in developing and disseminating best practices for assessing tobacco risk perceptions. A set of risk perception consensus measures may also benefit researchers in the field to help them consistently apply measurement recommendations. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2020. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.