Disclosure Decision‐Making Model

Abstract

This entry provides an introduction to Greene's disclosure decision‐making model (DD‐MM) and reviews health communication‐based literature testing, utilizing, and applying the theory. While several information management theories and frameworks consider uncertainty management and information‐seeking practices, they overlook an important opportunity to capture disclosers' engagement in systematic decision making about how and why private health information is communicated to others. The DD‐MM provides a holistic understanding of the factors that individuals evaluate and weigh preceding the choice to share with or withhold health information – including diagnoses and ongoing health updates – from a particular communication target. The DD‐MM suggests that prior to disclosing private health‐related information, communicators engage in complex decision‐making processes which, taken together, determine the content, breadth, depth, and targets of disclosure acts. The DD‐MM considers the discloser's viewpoint, illuminating direct and indirect effects on disclosure decision‐making that occur prior to a decision regarding a communicative act. This approach provides conceptual grounding for how information appraisals (i.e., stigma, preparation, prognosis, symptoms, and relevance to others), receiver appraisals (i.e., relational quality, anticipated response), and perceptions of disclosure efficacy contribute to enactment of and outcomes of (non)disclosure across contexts, situations, and communication goals. The entry reviews qualitative and quantitative research testing and applying the DD‐MM, ending with critique and future research.