Information Seeking and Avoiding in Health Contexts

Information management is an important component of coping with illness and illness-related uncertainty. Normative theory and research on information seeking and avoiding in health contexts can help explain why some information management activities are more adaptive than others. Challenges and dilemmas of information management include relational demands (e.g., the need to coordinate the behaviors and goals of the participants) and contextual features (e.g., cross-cultural considerations or channels available for information seeking and providing). Issues that need to be addressed in a normative approach include (a) how information management goals can be accomplished while still accounting for other goals (e.g., identity management or relational maintenance), (b) what roles interpreters can play to facilitate effective cross-cultural information exchange (e.g., as cultural informants), and (c) how information seekers can best manage conflicting or overwhelming information when confronted with messages from multiple channels.