Age Differences in Information-Seeking among Cancer Patients

Abstract

Studies examining patient populations have found that information-seeking decreases with age. However, researchers usually define information-seeking as involving only the medical establishment, while they neglect other sources of information. The present study examined the use of two types of information sources, non-medical establishment (newspaper, television, and friends) and medical establishment (doctors and nurses), among seventy-five cancer patients aged eighteen to eighty-one years. Patients responded to questionnaires asking about information-seeking, desire for more cancer information, self-perception of their knowledge about cancer, and actual knowledge of facts about cancer. For the medical establishment source, information-seeking decreased with age; however, no age differences existed for seeking non-medical establishment information. In individuals with high levels of desire for information, older adults reported more information-seeking from non-medical sources than did younger adults.