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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Lauren McCormack, PhD, Pamela Williams-Piehota, PhD, Katherine Treiman, MPH, and Carla Bann, PhD. Health Promotion Research, RTI International, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, 919-541-6000, ppiehota@rti.org

Attaining information is an integral component of informed decisionmaking. People have different health information seeking styles (HIS) and approaches for gaining information. The information people obtain and how they use it may influence their health related decisionmaking. We used a 10-item HIS scale (Maibach et al., 2006) to classify study participants into three different styles of health information seeking depending on the extent of their autonomy with health information seeking (Independent versus Doctor-Dependent) and the effort they expend in seeking health information (Active versus Passive) – 1) “Independent Actives”, 2) “Doctor-Dependent Actives”, and 3) “Passives”. We surveyed 361 men aged 40 to 80 who attended community-based presentations designed to provide men with information needed to make informed decisions about prostate cancer screening and to promote informed decisionmaking between men and their physicians.

We found that Independent Actives had significantly greater prior knowledge about the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test and treatment for prostate cancer than Doctor-Dependent Actives and Passives, probably because they tend to seek out information from multiple sources. Passives were less likely to have had a recent PSA test and less likely to plan to get the test in the next year. Passives were more likely to report difficulty making a screening decision compared with more active information seekers. Doctor-Dependent Actives were most likely to prefer their doctors be actively involved in the PSA testing decision. Active information seekers may also have higher levels of self-efficacy. Implications for informed decision-making and communicating health information will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will be able to recognize the ways that individuals differ with regard to their health information seeking, understand how different styles of information seeking may influence decisionmaking, and describe some implications for promoting informed decision-making among different types of information seekers.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation