Stymied by a wealth of health information: How viewing conflicting information online diminishes efficacy

ABSTRACT

Background: Confusing information about cancer screening proliferates even within credible sources online, particularly around mammography and prostate antigen testing. One story may emphasize the benefits of screening while another focuses on its risks. How does this contradiction affect readers of these stories?

Method: Survey participants were recruited online via social media. Across two experiments, one focusing on breast cancer risk perception and the other on prostate cancer, we randomized participants into four groups to see social media posts that contained conflicting information with or without the element of potential harm. The control group saw messages supporting preventive screening tests without conflict between posts.

Results: In both experiments, conflict was shown to reduce both self-efficacy and response efficacy. Men and women responded differently to messages that included the potential of harm from screening tests.

Conclusions: We found support for the notion that exposure to conflicting information decreases self-efficacy and response efficacy, potentially discouraging the likelihood of behavior change that could prevent cancer. The additional finding that women’s self-efficacy was reduced by uncertainty but not by the potential for harm – while men’s self-efficacy was conversely reduced by harm potential but not uncertainty – may be an important consideration in communication efforts to encourage screening.

KEYWORDS:

• Cancer screening
• social media
• breast cancer
• prostate cancer
• health information seeking behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

Prior to data collection, the study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the research was conducted.

Notes on contributors

Laura Heisner Marshall earned her PhD at UNC Chapel Hill in 2017. Her research focus is health communication, specifically focusing on issues of identity in online and social media using both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the effects on lay audiences of media communication of complex scientific information. Dr. Marshall also researches physician-patient communication, news coverage of health care reform, and the beneficial effects of video games on cancer survivors. Her work has been published in Public Relations Inquiry, Games for Health, American Journalism and the Wiley International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, and won top paper awards at public health and journalism education conferences.

Maria Leonora ‘Nori’ Comello is an Associate Professor at UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Media and Journalism. Her research lies at the intersection of strategic communication, health and identity. In particular, she studies the potential for messages to frame health in terms of valued identities, as well as the effects of activated identities on behavioral decision-making. In addition, her research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including Media Psychology, Games for Health Journal, Communication Theory, Health Communication, Journal of Health Communication, Health Marketing Quarterly.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.