Assessing the Impact of a Theatrical Performance on Audience Attitudes and Behavior Intentions toward Research: An Empirical Study of a Reading of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s drama Informed Consent.

  • Date: 2016 - present
  • Type: Research
  • Investigators / Instructors / Facilitators:

    Erin Rothwell, PhD, Jeffrey R. Botkin, MD, MPH, Sydney Cheek-O’Donnell, PhD, Bob Wong, PhD, Gretchen A. Case, PhD, Erin Johnson, PhD, Trent Matheson, MPP, Alena Wilson, Nicole R. Robinson, PhD, Jared Rawlings, PhD, Brooke Horejsi, MA, Ana Maria Lopez, MD, and Carrie L. Byington, MD

There is limited published empirical research of the effects of theatrical performances on attitudes and behavioral intentions toward research. This study assessed the short-term impact of the play “Informed Consent” by Deborah Zoe Laufer (a fictionalized look at the controversy over specimens collected from the Havasupai Tribe for diabetes research in 1989) on perceptions of trust, willingness to donate biospecimens, attitudes toward harm and privacy among the medical and undergraduate students, faculty and the public in the intermountain west.

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