Article Document Academic Article Information Content Entity Continuant Continuant Journal Article Entity Entity Generically Dependent Continuant 2025-05-08T10:51:24 RDF description of Information processing and negative affect: evidence from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey - http://repository.healthpartners.com/individual/document-rn18929 Information processing and negative affect: evidence from the 2003 Health Information National Trends Survey Cancer Health Psychology 10.1037/0278-6133.27.2.249 document-rn18929 2 17494 Mental Health <p>OBJECTIVE: Health communication can help reduce the cancer burden by increasing processing of information about health interventions. Negative affect is associated with information processing and may be a barrier to successful health communication. DESIGN AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We examined associations between negative affect and information processing at the population level. Symptoms of depression (6 items) and cancer worry (1 item) operationalized negative affect; attention to health information (5 items) and cancer information-seeking experiences (6 items) operationalized information processing. RESULTS: Higher cancer worry was associated with more attention to health information (p<.01) and worse cancer information-seeking experiences (p<.05). More symptoms of depression were associated with worse information-seeking experiences (p<.01), but not with attention. CONCLUSIONS: We found population-level evidence that increased cancer worry is associated with more attention to health information, and increased cancer worry and symptoms of depression are associated with worse cancer information-seeking experiences. Results suggest that affect plays a role in health information processing, and decreasing negative affect associated with cancer communication may improve experiences seeking cancer information.<p> Depression Communication Health Education 27 11457 public 2022-02-21T22:48:57.408-06:00