Patient use of treatment-related information received from the cancer information service

Abstract

This study explored patient information‐seeking behavior and how such behavior might affect patient‐physician interaction or health‐care decisions. Telephone interviews were conducted with 257 patients with cancer and their relatives who called the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service (CIS) and who received treatment‐related information. Results indicated that these patients were generally very satisfied with communication from their treating physicians, had strong information needs, and preferred to participate in their treatment plans. They sought information from CIS just after diagnosis (49%) or during treatment (31%). Many of these patients (42%) discussed the CIS information with their physicians and 19% of these physicians sought more information or consulted a CIS referral. CIS referrals were contacted personally by 18% of patients. Stepwise discriminant analyses indicated that, compared with patients who did not, patients with either of these outcomes were more stressed by their disease and had been seen at more hospitals. Additionally, patients who shared CIS information with their physicians were also younger and more trusting that their physicians had current knowledge. Patients who themselves contacted a CIS referral were also more educated, had higher information needs, were less satisfied with the clarity of physicians' answers to their questions, called CIS earlier in their illness, and called specifically for a referral. Overall, these patients' most common information needs were for exploring all treatment options and being knowledgeable when discussing treatment plans with physicians. The information received from CIS satisfied these needs and was often communicated to their physicians.

Antecedent Characteristics of Online Cancer Information Seeking Among Rural Breast Cancer Patients: An Application of the Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing (C-SHIP) Model

“…al, 2003). Cancer-related anxiety has been found both to be associated with less information seeking (Wilkinson & Wilson, 1983;Pifalo, Hollander, Henderson, DeSalvo, & Gill, 1997) and with greater information seeking (Manfredi, Czaja, Buis, & Derk, 1993). Such mixed findings illustrate the importance of context-relevant assessment emphasized in the C-SHIP model.…”

Information-Seeking in Cancer Survivors: Application of the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking to HINTS 2007 Data

“…The influence of cancer-related worry and beliefs on cancer information seeking is less well established. Cancerrelated anxiety has been found to be associated with decreased information-seeking behavior (Pifalo, Hollander, Henderson, DeSalvo, & Gill, 1997;Wilkinson & Wilson, 1983) as well as greater information-seeking behavior (Manfredi, Czaja, Buis, & Derk, 1993). In addition, while belief in the lack of treatment effectiveness, or having feelings that one is unable to have an influence in his or her own health care outcomes, has been associated with lower levels of information seeking and greater levels of anxiety (Becker & Rosenstock, 1989;Katz, 1968), others posit that patients could seek out cancer information as a coping mechanism to build up their sense of efficacy .…”

Cancer-related information sought by the general public: Evidence from the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service, 2002–2003

“…Prior research has assessed cancer information seeking. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Furthermore, specific evaluation of the information sought by callers to the CIS has also been pursued 7,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] ; however, many of these prior evaluations have examined the information sought by cancer patients 6,17,18,21,23 and their caregivers. 17,19 Growing public interest in cancer information coupled with increases in the amount and complexity of cancer information demands careful, timely, and continual evaluation of public requests for information.…”