Does confidence in one's ability to communicate with the physician impact health information seeking behavior?

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine if prostate cancer (PCa) survivor confidence in communicating with their physician impacts planning to look for health information related to their treatment. Secondarily, we explored if this relationship differs by race. Experimental Procedures: Descriptive and multivariate analyses (Pearson Chi-Square) were conducted using SPSS 28. Perceived Efficacy in Patient-Physician Interactions (PEPPI-10) scale scores were summed, then a score of 30 was established as the cut point for high and low efficacy to ensure adequate data in all cells due to a small sample size. A survivor's plan to look was collected dichotomously as “plan to look for this information” and “not planning to look for this information”. For the crosstabulation, confidence was placed in the rows, plan to look in the columns, and race as layer 1. Summary of Data: 63 men who were treated for or actively monitoring localized PCa were purposefully sampled and completed a 119-item self-administered questionnaire (mean age = 64.17 years, white = 58.7%, African American = 41.3%, private health insurance = 51.6%, married/partnered = 79.4%). Twenty questions inquired about the survivors’ plan to look for treatment information. Confidence in ability to communicate with their physician was measured using the PEPPI-10 scale. Conclusions: Out of the 20 plan to look for treatment information questions, only “plan to look for treatment options insurance would cover” was significant (p= .018) in non-Hispanic White men. The findings suggest that men's level of confidence in their ability to talk with their provider does not influence their plan to look for treatment related information. Health seeking behaviors could be contributed to by other variables such as social support and the role survivors prefer to take in their care. Descriptively, our analysis showed more men plan to look up treatment related information regardless of level of confidence. Therefore, health care providers (HCPs) should not rely on a patients’ confidence to communicate, rather HCPs should plan to educate all patients on how to search for quality health information. To support patient-physician communication, resources such as prompt lists or patient navigators could be provided to patients to increase their ability to communicate with their physicians. Citation Format: Jala Lockhart, Levi Ross, James Leeper, Jordan Young. Does confidence in one’s ability to communicate with the physician impact health information seeking behavior? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 15th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2022 Sep 16-19; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2022;31(1 Suppl):Abstract nr B013.