Worry as an Uncertainty-Associated Emotion: Exploring the Role of Worry in Health Information Seeking

ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to understand how and why worry motivates health-related information seeking, and whether worry decreases after obtaining health-related information. It was proposed that worry influences health-related information-seeking behavior indirectly through cancer patients’ desire for obtaining additional information. It was further expected that perceived knowledge about cancer could be increased after 2 months of searching for health information over the Internet, which would subsequently affect levels of worry. Using panel data collected from 224 women diagnosed with breast cancer, worry was found to predict patients’ health information seeking via the perceived need for additional information. The results further showed significant increases in patients’ perceived knowledge about breast cancer and decreased levels of worry after the seeking of health information for 2 months. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Notes

¹ CHESS (Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support Studies) is a nonprofit eHealth system that provides more limited content based on the needs identified in the studies of women with breast cancer, their partners, and adult children. It is designed to be attractive and easy to use, with 12 integrated services in four main categories to improve the quality of life of breast cancer patients: (a) Information Services, consisting of Questions and Answers, Instant Library, Personal Stories, Consumer Guide, Referral Directory, and the Dictionary; (b) Problem Solving Services, including Decisions Aid and Action Plan; (c) Self-Monitoring and Guidance Services, including Personal Profiles and Assessments; and (d) Support Services, consisting of Ask an Expert and Discussion Group.

² To avoid skewness, 14 outliers who were extremely heavy users of health information were dropped from the main analyses. Accordingly, the data from a total of 224 participants were used for the analyses.

³ In this case, a 0,1 dummy variable was employed for experimental conditions, where the Internet condition was given the value of 0 and the CHESS condition was assigned the value of 1.