Health information seeking and scanning among US adults aged 50–75 years: Testing a key postulate of the information overload model

Abstract

Past research has found that older US adults (aged 50–75 years) exhibit high levels of cancer information overload and cancer worry; however, no study to date has examined whether these perceptions are related to information seeking/scanning. To explore this relationship, older adults ( N = 209, Mage = 55.56, SD = 4.24) were recruited to complete a survey measuring seeking, scanning, cancer information overload, and cancer worry. Most participants were high-scan/seekers (40.2%) followed by low-scan/seekers (21.1%), high-scan/no seekers (19.6%), and low-scan/no seekers (19.1%). Low-scan/no seekers had significantly higher cancer information overload compared to all other groups, consistent with the postulate that overload and seeking/scanning are negatively related. Low-scan/no seekers and high-scan/seekers both exhibited higher cancer worry severity, consistent with past research suggesting that cancer worry explains high levels of activity/inactivity.