Risk perception item characteristics
| Risk perception item characteristics | Description, (code) | Example (response options) (code) |
| Likelihood, absolute | Perceived probability that one will be harmed by tobacco product use (yes/no) | How likely are you to get lung cancer? (very low, somewhat low, moderate, somewhat high, very high)51 (yes) |
| Likelihood, comparative | Perceived probability that one will be harmed by tobacco product use compared with another person, another product or another behaviour (yes/no) | Compared with others your same age and sex, how would you rate your risk of having a heart attack within the next 10 years? (1. much lower than average, 2. lower than average, 3. about average, 4. higher than average, 5. much higher than average)52 (yes) |
| Conditional | Consideration of future outcomes with respect to tobacco product use (often hypothetical) in which they might engage, with the item being contingent on certain factors (frequency/time/product/some combination of these/no) | I can smoke a couple of cigarettes a day and still not harm my health (strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree)53 (frequency and product) |
| Risk target | The person who experiences the harm (self (eg, what is your risk)/specific other (eg, 50-year-old male’s risk)/average other (eg, average person’s risk)/general (eg, what is the risk?)) | How concerned are you about getting lung cancer in your lifetime? (four-point Likert scale, 1—not at all to 4—very much)54 (self) |
| Severity | Perceived extent of harm that tobacco product use would cause (yes/no) | How serious would the health consequences be if you developed lung cancer? (1=not at all, 2=a little, 3=somewhat, 4=quite, 5=extremely)55 (yes) |
| Affect | Emotional response to tobacco product use (eg, fear, worry, disgust) (yes/no) | How often do you worry about getting lung cancer? Would you say… (rarely or never, sometimes, often, all the time)56 (yes) |
| Controllable | Ability to take action to reduce harm (yes/no) | Menthols are less harmful to me than non-menthols. (each (scale) rated on a four-point scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree)57 (yes) |
| Known | Harms being well known to experts or others (yes/no) | The evidence indicating that smoking causes serious illness is very convincing (strongly agree, agree, don’t know, disagree, strongly disagree)58 (yes) |
| Health outcome | Health effect caused by tobacco (specific (eg, cancer, heart disease)/general (eg, harm, risk, risk of disease)/hybrid (eg, risk of disease such as cancer)) | What is the likelihood of getting addicted when using a water pipe socially? (none, low, medium, high)59 (specific) |