ArticleJournal of behavioral medicine2014
Association of cancer worry and perceived risk with doctor avoidance: an analysis of information avoidance in a nationally representative US sample.
Article in Journal of behavioral medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 143 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fear of cancer recurrence: a theoretical review and novel cognitive processing formulation.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2016Pooled it
- Acceptability of de-intensified screening for women at low risk of breast cancer: a randomised online experimental survey.BMC cancer · 2024Trial
- Trial
- FRESH: Long-Term Outcomes of a Randomized Trial to Reduce Radon and Tobacco Smoke in the Home.Preventing chronic disease · 2019Trial
- Medical mistrust, health system distrust, and their associations with healthcare delay and cancer screening attitudes in primary care.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Investigating Oral Health Information Avoidance Among Chinese Young Adults: The Roles of Subjective Norms, Message Fatigue, and Loss Aversion-A Cross-Sectional Study.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Associations between perceived cancer impact and measures of health behavior in survivors of childhood cancer.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2026Article
- Rewriting Doom: Serial Pathways from eHealth Use to Reduced Cancer Fatalism in Family Cancer History Groups.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2026Article
- Modeling information demand in the framework of probabilistic reasoning.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- The impact of risk information frameworks on cancer drug insurance (CDI) purchase decisions through time orientation and perceived risk: a survey-experiment study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- The utility of trauma history and current psychopathology in predicting preventive health behaviors.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Giving support to close others increases affective risk perceptions: longitudinal and experimental studies.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- Impact of personalised risk predictions on breast cancer risk perceptions: insights from the BREATHE study.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- The psychosocial background of dental care avoidance: A qualitative study.Oral diseases · 2025Article
- The role of hopelessness in mediating the relationship between income loss and delaying and foregoing healthcare: Evidence from repeated cross-sectional waves of the Household Pulse Survey.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Messages About Tobacco and Alcohol Co-Users.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2025Article
- Metacognition biases information seeking in assessing ambiguous news.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Determinants of Medical Care-Seeking Behavior for Musculoskeletal Conditions During US Marine Corps Training: A Thematic Analysis.Journal of athletic training · 2024Article
- Patients' anxieties and fears: a comparison between transrectal prostate biopsy and prostate MRI.Translational andrology and urology · 2024Article
- "How" web searches change under stress.Scientific reports · 2024Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Fear of receiving bad news about one's health can lead people to avoid seeking out health information that, ironically, may be crucial for health maintenance. Using a nationally representative US sample, the present study examined whether perceived likelihood of developing cancer and worry about cancer were associated with reports of avoiding visits to one's doctor, in respondents under and over age 50. Cancer worry, but not perceived risk of cancer, predicted doctor avoidance in respondents aged 50 and older, whereas the opposite pattern held for respondents under age 50. Moreover, in respondents aged 50 and older, cancer worry and perceived cancer risk interacted such that cancer worry was linked to doctor avoidance only when respondents also perceived a high likelihood of cancer. The latter result is consistent with the notion that worry may motivate information seeking when people expect information to dispel worry and information avoidance when the information is seen as highly likely to confirm one's fears. Findings suggest a need for communication strategies that can influence worry and perceived risk differentially. Research should also assess the effectiveness of other behavioral strategies (e.g., automatic scheduling of appointments) as a means for reducing doctor avoidance.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.