A Healthy Liver Will Always Deliver: Impact Study of a Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) Awareness Comic

ABSTRACT

Based on previous work, we developed the comic “A healthy liver will always deliver!” to raise awareness about Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and promote healthy lifestyles. An online pre-post questionnaire design demonstrated an increase in health-threat beliefs regarding NAFLD among the general public, as well as response efficacy and self-efficacy beliefs, normative and control beliefs regarding the maintenance of preventive strategies involving healthy diets and active lifestyles, after interaction with the comic’s narrative. This effect was more evident in women. Furthermore, although we could not perform all the ideal controls during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the online strategy attracted mostly university education-level subjects, the comic seemed relatable and engaging. However, more work will have to be performed to ensure its usefulness in terms of acquired knowledge and behavior changes, especially in at-risk segments of the population.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the T2DM patients that participated in the NAFLD awareness study and whose experience was crucial for the development of the graphic narrative. Teresa Firmino, science journalist at PÚBLICO is greatly thanked for the news piece that provided high rates of participations and made this study possible. Sara Araújo and Mariana-Moura Ramos are thanked for their inputs during the design of the questionnaires and Ernest Pagès is thanked for the help in the construction of the online platform that permitted the execution of the study. Two anonymous reviewers and editor Andy King are acknowledged for key inputs that helped frame the final version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions HORIZON EUROPE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions.