Introduction In Workers’ Health Surveillance, workers are presented with their results of preventive tests. How the test results should be presented in this context in order to influence help-seeking behaviour, e.g. visiting a health provider, is not known. The aim of this study is to examine the influence of presentation of the results of a preventive medical examination on willingness to seek help for workrelated fatigue or being overweight.

Methods A factorial design experiment with counterbalancing was conducted by presenting n=82 workers with vignettes including eight scenarios with hypothetical preventive tests results. The results were presented by stating either:

1. a ‘high score’ only (Neutral label),

2. a ‘high score, followed by a statement emphasising the risk of a current disorder’ (Current label), or

3. a ‘high score, followed by statement emphasising the risk of this situation progressing into a health condition in the future’ (Progress label).

Participants rated the willingness to seek help on a VAS scale (0-not at all willing to 100-very willing) as if these were their own results. Differences between pairs of scenarios were tested with paired-sample t-tests.

Result Compared to the presentation with neutral labels, participants reported more willingness to seek help in both the scenarios with current vs neutral pairs (46, SD 27.1, vs 37, SD 27.1; p<0.000), and the progress vs neutral pairs (47, SD 27.6 vs 36, SD 26.0; p<0.000). No statistically significant differences were observed between scenarios about work-related fatigue and being overweight.

Discussion Workers are more inclined to seek help if the risk is explicitly presented in the results.

Our experimental design allowed us to compare various conditions, but we could not use actual test results. Testing whether workers react differently to results reflecting their own health rather than vignettes remains a challenge for future research.