Comprehensive Model Of Information Seeking Research Articles

Source Selection in Prescription Drug Information Seeking and Influencing Factors: Applying the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking in an American Context

This study investigates source selection in prescription drug information seeking and influencing factors on selection and seeking behaviors applying a modified Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking in an American context. Survey results suggest consumers engage in prescription drug information search before and after visiting a doctor, but search is not extensive. Consumers turn to the Internet, pharmacists, and doctors most frequently for prescription drug information. Information-seeking behaviors are rather universal across demographic and health-related characteristics; however, higher income consumers are more likely to search. Although our study shows some support for the modified Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking, the results indicate influencing factors vary by information source types examined, suggesting the model is more complex than predicted. The study advances research on health communication, information-seeking behaviors, and prescription drug decision making.

PRISM: A Planned Risk Information Seeking Model

Recent attention on health-related information seeking has focused primarily on information seeking within specific health and health risk contexts. This study attempts to shift some of that focus to individual-level variables that may impact health risk information seeking across contexts. To locate these variables, the researcher posits an integrated model, the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM). The model, which treats risk information seeking as a deliberate (planned) behavior, maps variables found in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) and the Risk Information Seeking and Processing Model (RISP; Griffin, Dunwoody, & Neuwirth, 1999), and posits linkages among those variables. This effort is further informed by Kahlor's (2007) Augmented RISP, the Theory of Motivated Information Management (Afifi & Weiner, 2004), the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (Johnson & Meischke, 1993), the Health Information Acquisition Model (Freimuth, Stein, & Kean, 1989), and the Extended Parallel Processing Model (Witte, 1998). The resulting integrated model accounted for 59% of the variance in health risk information-seeking intent and performed better than the TPB or the RISP alone.

Factors Associated with Use of Interactive Cancer Communication System: An Application of the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking

In order to provide insights about cancer patients' online information seeking behaviors, the present study analyzes individuals' transaction log data and reports on how demographics, disease-related factors, and psychosocial needs predict patterns of service use within a particular Interactive Cancer Communication System (ICCS). Study sample included 294 recently diagnosed breast cancer patients. Data included pretest survey scores of demographic, disease-related, and psychosocial factors and automatically collected ICCS use data over the 4-month intervention. Statistical analyses correlated pre-test survey scores with subsequent, specific types of ICCS service usage. Patterns of online cancer information seeking differed according to the patients' characteristics, suggesting that lower income, less educated women and those lacking in information-seeking competence use the computer and online services to the same or a greater degree if those services are made available to them. Results of this study can inform more effective resource development for future eHealth applications.

A model for understanding and affecting cancer genetics information seeking

Health-related topics are relevant to a diverse array of people, which makes health information seeking a rich area in which to study how people look for information and to create interventions to aid in their searches. Cancer genetics is an important health context because information acquisition can positively impact an individual's morbidity and mortality while also affecting an individual's family network. However, this new field of research has created a complex information environment that is constantly evolving. Traditional methods of providing content through mass communication campaigns cannot keep pace. What is needed is a strategy that does not rely on perishable content, but instead helps people gain lifelong skills to find and assess cancer genetic information on their own. This article reviews the tenets of cancer information seeking—highlighting the growing public interest in genetics—and discusses how the burden of seeking health information has shifted to the patient. The authors introduce GENIS 2 (Genetic Information-Seeking Skills), which is an intervention framework for helping people build cancer genetic information-seeking skills that will be useful throughout their lives. GENIS 2 is based on the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS), which explores people's information-seeking actions by looking at the role played by demographics, experience, salience, and beliefs, as well as the information fields in which people exist. The CMIS is outlined and its stages are used to elucidate what kinds of cancer genetic information people are looking for in different situational contexts. The CMIS is also used as the framework for creating intervention strategies that information professionals can use to help coach people toward being more self-efficacious information seekers.

A Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking

Individual information seeking has become increasingly a critical determinant of the success of individual organizational members and of an organization as a whole. This study tests a Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS) that contains three primary classes of variables: Antecedents, which provide the underlying imperatives to seek information; Information Carrier Characteristics, which shape the nature of specific intentions to seek information from particular carriers; and Information Seeking Actions, which reflect the nature of the search itself and are the outcomes of the preceding classes. The CMIS was tested and refined in tests related to the informal channel in a large, technically oriented governmental agency (N = 380), then the refined model was confirmed by tests on the formal channel. Both tests of the revised model were supportive, suggesting that the most important variables were those related to an individual's existing information base, those associated with an individual's need for programmed information seeking, and those dealing with information carrier characteristics.

A Comprehensive Model of Cancer-Related Information Seeking Applied to Magazines

This article examines a comprehensive model of information seeking (CMIS) resulting from the synthesis of three theoretical research streams: the health belief model, uses and gratifications research, and a model of media exposure and appraisal. The model postulates that four health-related factors—demographics, direct experience, salience, and beliefs—determine two information carrier factors—perceptions of information carrier characteristics and utility—which, in turn, determine information-seeking actions. A sample of 366 adult women drawn from a medium-size midwestern city was surveyed by telephone on the issue of mammography use and cancer-related information seeking. The model resulted in an excellent fit to the data received. However, the values of the paths associated with the health-related factors were extremely low, suggesting that models of information seeking from mass media, such as magazines, should focus on purely communicative factors. These results are discussed in terms of future research and the pragmatic benefits of this theoretical framework.