INFORMATION-SEEKING AND ADAPTATIONAL OUTCOMES IN WOMEN RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER.
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 219
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Oncology.
Description: Individuals diagnosed with cancer and receiving chemotherapy treatment are exposed to a series of stressful experiences which stimulate a variety of coping responses and adaptational outcomes. The seeking out of information about one's diagnosis and medical treatment is one type of coping response which may or may not facilitate adaptation to this event. Results of existing research are inconsistent regarding the reported value of being well-informed.

To investigate this problem, a nonexperimental study was designed and questions were posed about the nature of information-seeking activities and the relationship of information-seeking to two adaptive outcome measures and a variety of demographic variables. Lazarus' theory of stress and coping provided the theoretical framework for the study. Subjects for the study were women receiving outpatient chemotherapy for breast cancer. In Phase One of the research, thirty-eight subjects participated in development of the Information Preference Questionnaire (IPQ), a quantitative measure of information-seeking. Both test-retest reliability (.92) and internal consistency (.88) for the instrument were high. Content validity was also established by a panel of experts. In Phase Two of the study, 58 additional subjects in their third to sixth month of chemotherapy were interviewed in depth about their information-seeking practices and asked to complete the IPQ and two standardized instruments selected for their ability to measure how well the patient was adapting to the chemotherapy treatment experience. These instruments were the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS).

Results showed that information-seeking was negatively related to age and severity of disease. No significant relationships were identified between information-seeking and adaptive outcomes. Subjects most frequently reported receiving verbal information about their disease and treatment from their oncologist, television programs, and the oncologist's nurse. Reading materials distributed in the oncologist's office, newspapers, and magazines were the sources of written information most often reported.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-02, Section: B, page: 0475.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1984.

School code: 0034.