Fear messages have been of importance within the nursing profession over the years and were even responsible for the reduction of the use of substance abuse in communities. Substances abuse is discouraged in many communities owing to their negative effects on the general health of an individual (DiBello, Neighbors, & Ammar, 2015). It is because of these adverse consequences that the nursing and health sector, in general, decided to come up with creative ideas to curb the menace. One of the commonly used strategies in this field is the formulation of fear messages to scare away the drug users from such activities (Banerjee & Greene, 2013). Back in 1960, this strategy of inducing fear among drug users used to be very rampant and fruitful but it lost ground in modern day generation because of a variety of reasons.
In addition, the fear message particularly was that those people are prone to using Tobacco are susceptible to skin and throat cancer (Maru, Gandhi, Ramchandani, & Kumar, 2014). The use of billboards and television advertisement were the two most important social media platforms used to spread the message (Chapman, 2014). This message was so detrimental and full of fear to the extent that tobacco user reduces in number to a relatively small portion (Shi & Smith, 2016). The message of fear brought about threats and discomfort among the intended audience. The ‘’fear” message, on the other hand, was successful in fulfilling the desired outcome by the health professionals (Thrasher et al., 2016). This message was in congested places and in open locations within the city centers to ensure the largest coverage possible.
Noteworthy is that the real intention of the message was to force the drug abusers to quit such activities and instead major on activities that are much constructive. Another major strength of the fear message is its ability to create stigmatization among the individuals that are on the wrong side of the message (Ilakkuvan, Turner, Cantrell, Hair, & Vallone, 2016). The public will view the users of tobacco products as the less fortunate in the society. People will see the drug users as if they will not be able to survive the unfavourable conditions for long and this will make the individuals quit the use of the products.
The target audience of the above “fear” message is the users of tobacco products such as cigarette smokers (Aravamudan et al., 2014). In particular, this target audience is relatively large and evenly distributed across numerous regions of the world. This is because cigarette smokers are present all over the globe due to the popularity of the substance as well as it is legality within many states (Macy, Chassin, Presson, & Yeung, 2016). In that regard, health professionals had to come up with some creative messages specifically intended to induce fear in such people.
Moreover, the “fear” message was successful in changing the behavior of the individuals since many of the users ended up dropping the practice (Leiter, Eigentler, & Garbe, 2014). This potential of the “fear” message to influence the behavior of the individual users, made it acceptable as a true and reliable strategy in compacting the health effect of drug abuse among many individuals (Cho et al., 2016).
Another main change in the behavior of the individual smokers is the regulation of the frequency of smoking associated with the cigarette users (Nagelhout, Janssen, Ruiter, & de Vries, 2015). The chain smokers recorded some positive improvements and expansion in the intervals of smoking (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). The chain smokers, to be particular, were able to stay without smoking for quite some time as opposed to previously without any fear messages portrayed in the social media.
Finally, the health risk associated with above “fear” message is very clear because it outlines the actual impact of the smoking to the health of the individual (Marshall, Wong, Cullen, Knuiman, & Grunstein, 2014). In particular, it claims that chain smoking or even normal smoking is detrimental to health in that it damages the lungs and causes both skin and throat cancer (Hall et al., 2016). On the other hand, behavioral changes are very evident right from the reduction in the number of individuals who abuse tobacco products.
References
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