Congress Abstracts 2005

37

INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIOR AMONG INDIVIDUALS RECEIVING TREATMENT FOR CANCER. Leah Mraz, MSN, RN, C, AOCN^®, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ.

Educating patients is a critical function of oncology nurses; it is imperative for individuals with cancer to understand the disease, treatment, and the physical, psychological, and social impact. Yet, how do nurses determine how much information to provide?

This study determined factors that influence information seeking among individuals receiving cancer treatment, and identified components of the information seeking process.

According to Lenz’s conceptual framework of health information seeking, potential predictors of variations in search behaviors are background, personality, context, and social network. This research focused on the first step, desire for information.

Descriptive design in which a purposive sample of 108 adult patients, at an ambulatory NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, completed a demographic survey, the Krantz Health Opinion Survey, and one open ended question.

Mean age was 55 years. The majority of subjects were female (61%), Caucasian (78.1%), had a college degree or greater (57.3%), had breast (24.8%) or hematological (24.8%) cancers, and were diagnosed less than six months (31.4%).

Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data were coded for themes.

The majority of subjects preferred information. Culture, length of time since diagnosis, and levels of education did not influence preference for information. Females preferred more information as compared to males. Emerging themes about the information search process revealed that information seeking is not an individual process, but a group effort with the group composed primarily of family. The Internet was the primary source for seeking information. The major topic searched for was cancer specific information.

Findings suggest that education should involve the family system, all of whom want information when a diagnosis of a cancer is present. Patients and families need to be informed about credible resources, and how to determine if information is trustworthy, especially on the Internet. Nurses are a critical resource to patients and family members. Findings support that the development of education resources and learning centers may assist with the information search process.