INFORMATION NEEDS OF RECENTLY DIAGNOSED CANCER PATIENTS.
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 214
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purpose of the study is to describe the information needs of recently diagnosed cancer patients in relation to their disease as well as to their personal, family, and social concerns.

The theoretical framework is constructed from theories of coping, appraisal, information seeking, information needs, and hierarchy of needs. Categories of analysis are derived from the theories and findings of previous research.

Methodological, descriptive, and exploratory-comparative designs are simultaneously used. The INA (Information Need Assessment) instrument is developed as a valid, reliable, and comprehensive interview instrument which is used to gather the data. Data gathered from 60 recently diagnosed cancer patients are content analyzed by the researcher. The intracoder reliability is established by percent agreement among data coded and recoded at 6-8 week intervals, and by intercoder reliability using the Derdiarian-Lewis binomial test of proportion of agreements developed during this study.

Information needs and their importance as perceived by the recently diagnosed cancer patients are described according to their nature, i.e., harm, threats, and resources. Disease, Personal, Family, and Social Concerns constitute the major categories of information needs. Dominances in categories of information needs and their importance values are described within, as well as among the major categories. These dominances indicate consistencies with the hierarchy of survival needs, and with the amount, imminence, and likelihood of anticipated harm.

The comparisons of information needs and importance values among patients stratified by person- or situation-related variables indicate few differences by gender, age, and stage of cancer. The findings imply that information needs may be universal, and warrant research in the relationship of information needs to those variables.

The contribution to knowledge is the description of information needs of the 60 recently diagnosed cancer patients. The contribution to methodology is the INA instrument and the Derdiarian-Lewis binomial test for reliability. The contribution to theory is the theoretical development of information seeking and information need as they pertain to the information needs of recently diagnosed cancer patients. The added contributions are the implications of the findings that, in the recently diagnosed cancer patient, information needs may be determined by the hierarchy of survival needs (physical, psychological, social), and by the amount, imminence, and likelihood of anticipated harm; and that they may or may not be universal.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-11, Section: B, page: 3782.

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

School code: 0034.