Information processing and negative affect: evidence from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey.

OBJECTIVE

Health communication can help reduce the cancer burden by increasing processing of information about health interventions. Negative affect is associated with information processing and may be a barrier to successful health communication.

DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

We examined associations between negative affect and information processing at the population level. Symptoms of depression (6 items) and cancer worry (1 item) operationalized negative affect; attention to health information (5 items) and cancer information-seeking experiences (6 items) operationalized information processing.

RESULTS

Higher cancer worry was associated with more attention to health information (p<.01) and worse cancer information-seeking experiences (p<.05). More symptoms of depression were associated with worse information-seeking experiences (p<.01), but not with attention.

CONCLUSIONS

We found population-level evidence that increased cancer worry is associated with more attention to health information, and increased cancer worry and symptoms of depression are associated with worse cancer information-seeking experiences. Results suggest that affect plays a role in health information processing, and decreasing negative affect associated with cancer communication may improve experiences seeking cancer information.