The role of tentative decisions and health concepts in assessing information about mammography screening

Breast cancer awareness campaigns and screening programs are important public health issues. In order to deepen women’s knowledge about mammography screening, a balanced presentation of arguments is considered to be relevant. Yet, little is known about how women process this information and assess pro and contra arguments, which, in turn, can be embedded in different health paradigms. The aim of this experimental study was to determine the impact of both women’s pre-formed, tentative decisions about whether to participate in mammography screening and of their individual health concepts on their assessment of different arguments about mammography screening. The results showed that women who would tend at the outset to participate in mammography screening rated information about advantages as more relevant than information about disadvantages – in contrast to women who did not intend to participate. In addition, the greater the fit was between women’s individual health concepts and the health concept presented in the arguments, the more they considered the information presented to be relevant. We conclude that presenting balanced information about mammography screening does not guarantee balanced processing of that information. Health professionals need to be aware of people’s prior beliefs and of the health paradigm in which information is embedded.

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