Perceived Health Condition Severity

What it measures

A brief unidimensional scale capturing a person's belief that a specified health condition is severe, serious, and significant. Originally used across five studies examining how temporal framing of health warnings affects risk perception, with conditions ranging from gingivitis and obesity to various skin-related concerns. The blank in each item is replaced with the name of the health condition under study. Despite its health origins, the authors suggest the scale may generalise to non-health threats (e.g., environmental hazards, life events) with appropriate psychometric re-evaluation.

Response format

7-point Likert (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)

Scale items

• I believe that _____ is severe.
• I believe that _____ is serious.
• I believe that _____ is significant.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Insert the name of the specific health condition into each item (e.g., 'skin cancer'). Scale appeared in five separate studies with consistently high reliability (.90–.95). Not validated for non-health contexts without further psychometric testing.

Citation

Murdock, M.R., & Rajagopal, P. (2017). The sting of social: How emphasizing social consequences in warning messages influences perceptions of risk. Journal of Marketing, 81(2), 83–98.

Keywords