How Can Skin Check Reminders be Personalised to Patient Conscientiousness

This paper explores the potential of personalising health reminders to melanoma patients based on their personality (high vs low conscientiousness). We describe a study where we presented participants with a scenario with a fictional patient who has not performed a skin check for recurrent melanoma. The patient was described as either very conscientious, or very unconscientious. We asked participants to rate reminders inspired by Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion for their suitability for the patient. Participants then chose their favourite reminder and an alternative reminder to send if that one failed. We found that conscientiousness had an effect on both the ratings of reminder types and the most preferred reminders selected by participants.