Study: FORCE online survey: What breast cancer information do young women want and where do they look for it?
Contents
At a glance | In-depth |
Findings | Limitations |
Questions for your doctor | Resources and reference |
STUDY AT A GLANCE
This study is about:
Understanding where young women seek information about breast cancer and identifying their unmet information needs.
Why is this study important?
Young women often seek health information from mainstream media; however, what they find often does not address their specific needs, is hard to interpret, or sometimes misleading. To help guide the XRAYS program, FORCE developed and launched an online survey to identify the unique information needs of young breast cancer patients and survivors and where they look for health information.
Study findings:
Eligible survey participants were women between ages 18 and 45 years who had a history of breast cancer or who tested positive for a genetic mutation (e.g., a , or other gene mutation) that significantly increased their risk. A total of 1,178 eligible women responded to the survey.
Respondents reported the types of information resources they used at least occasionally, including:
- non-profit organizations’ health information web sites (~85%)
- health news websites (~80%)
- Facebook (~75%)
- online health blogs (~67%)
- radio/television broadcast news (~67%)
The survey also asked whether the women had discussed media health reports with their health care providers: 833 respondents (70%) answered this question:
- 298 of (36%) indicated that they had shared a health-related article or report.
- 405 (49%) reported not sharing this type of information.
- 130 (15%) reported that they did not recall whether they had shared this type of information.
Asked to share their health care providers’ responses to sharing of media reports, only 47 respondents responded:
- 39 (83%) reported positive reaction from health care providers.
- 8 (17%) reported a negative reaction.
What does this mean for me?
A large number of women indicated that they turn to nonprofit organizations for health information. Almost as many women indicated they received health information from the news and social media. Throughout the course of XRAYS, we have found a wide range of accuracy among media reports. These results support the need for programs like XRAYS that provide information about the quality and reporting of breast cancer research in the media.
While only 36% of respondents said they had discussed media articles with their health care providers, these women also reported that providers responded positively. Many people may be reluctant to share new information about breast cancer that they read in the media because they are nervous about their health care provider’s response. These results suggest that providers are likely to respond positively the sharing of information.
We are revising our XRAYS format to better facilitate printing so that you can more easily share the articles with your health care providers.
Posted 1/18/19
Reference
Yi RHP, Rezende LF, Huynh J, Kramer K, Cranmer M, Schlager L, Dearfield CT and Friedman SJ. XRAYS (eXamining Relevance of Articles to Young Survivors) Program Survey of Information Needs and Media Use by Young Breast Cancer Survivors and Young Women at High-Risk for Breast Cancer. Health Comm. 2017. 33 (12):1525-1530.
Disclosure
FORCE receives funding from industry sponsors, including companies that manufacture cancer drugs, tests and devices. All XRAYS articles are written independently of any sponsor and are reviewed by members of our Scientific Advisory Board prior to publication to assure scientific integrity.
This article is relevant for:
Young women and the health care providers who treat them
This article is also relevant for:
previvors
people with triple negative breast cancer
people with ER/PR + cancer
people with Her2-positive cancer
people with a genetic mutation linked to cancer risk
people with breast cancer
people with metastatic or advanced cancer
Be part of XRAY:
- What is the best way for me to share media articles about breast cancer with you to understand how the information may affect my care?
- Are you aware of FORCE’s XRAYS program?