The Role of Patient–Clinician Information Engagement and Information Seeking from Nonmedical Channels in Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Cancer Patients

Abstract

Previous research suggests positive effects of health information seeking on prevention behaviors such as diet, exercise, and fruit and vegetable consumption. The present study builds upon this research and strengthens causal claims from it by examining the lagged effect of patient–clinician information engagement on fruit and vegetable consumption as well as the indirect effect on the outcome through seeking information from nonmedical channels. The results are based on data collected from a randomly drawn sample of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer patients from the Pennsylvania Cancer Registry who completed mail surveys in the Fall of 2006 and 2007. There was a 65% response rate for baseline subjects (resulting n = 2,013); of those, 1,293 were interviewed 1 year later, and 1,257 were available for our analyses. Results show a positive lagged main effect of patient–clinician information engagement at baseline on fruit and vegetable consumption at follow-up (B = 0.26, SE = 0.10, p = .01). The mediation analysis shows that patient–clinician information engagement leads to increased fruit and vegetable consumption among cancer patients, in part through patients' information seeking from nonmedical channels. Implications of these findings for the cancer patient population and for physicians are discussed.