Information processing and negative affect: evidence from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey Journal Article uri icon
Overview
abstract
  • OBJECTIVE: Health communication can help reduce the cancer burden by increasing processing of information about health interventions. Negative affect is associated with information processing and may be a barrier to successful health communication. DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We examined associations between negative affect and information processing at the population level. Symptoms of depression (6 items) and cancer worry (1 item) operationalized negative affect; attention to health information (5 items) and cancer information-seeking experiences (6 items) operationalized information processing. RESULTS: Higher cancer worry was associated with more attention to health information (p<.01) and worse cancer information-seeking experiences (p<.05). More symptoms of depression were associated with worse information-seeking experiences (p<.01), but not with attention. CONCLUSIONS: We found population-level evidence that increased cancer worry is associated with more attention to health information, and increased cancer worry and symptoms of depression are associated with worse cancer information-seeking experiences. Results suggest that affect plays a role in health information processing, and decreasing negative affect associated with cancer communication may improve experiences seeking cancer information.

  • Link to Article
    publication date
  • 2008
  • published in
  • Health Psychology  Journal
  • Research
    keywords
  • Cancer
  • Communication
  • Depression
  • Health Education
  • Mental Health
  • Additional Document Info
    volume
  • 27
  • issue
  • 2