Table 2.

Operationalization of cancer information seeking

Outcome	Question & Response Options	First Author (Year)	HINTS 1 (2003)	HINTS 2 (2005)	HINTS 3 (2007)	HINTS PR (2009)
Cancer Information Seeking	Have you ever looked for information about cancer from any source? (yes/no)	Madadi M (2014)	√
		Kontos EZ (2012)			√
		Ortiz (2011)				√
		Kealy E (2010)		√
		Zhao X (2010)		√
		Han (2009)		√
		Kaphingst KA (2009)	√	√
		Zhao X (2009)	√
		McQueen (2008)	√
		Cerully (2006)	√
		Ling BS (2006)	√
		Ford JS (2006)
Cancer Information Seeking (Past Year)	Have you looked for information about cancer from any source? (yes/no) and About how long ago was that? (open-ended responses] for days, weeks, months, or years ago) were combined to create a new variable. Information seekers had looked for information about cancer within the last year, and Non-seekers had either never looked for information about cancer, or had not looked for information about cancer within the past year	Shim M (2006)	√
Cancer Information Seeking (Past Week)	Have you looked for information about cancer from any source? (yes/no) and About how long ago was that? (open-ended responses] for days, weeks, months, or years ago) were combined to create a new variable. Past week seekers Other	Niederdeppe (2008)	√
Cancer Information Seeking (Surrogate Seekers)	Excluding your doctor or health care provider, has someone else ever looked for information about cancer for you? (yes/no)	Zhao X (2010)		√
		McQueen (2008)	√
		Ling BS (2006)	√
Cancer Information Seekers, Surrogate Seekers, and Non- seekers (4 Groups)	Cancer information seeking and surrogate seeking questions were combined to create four groups: seekers only; seekers and surrogate seekers; surrogate seekers only, non-seekers. (Seekers=seeker/seeker & surrogate seeker; Non-seekers=surrogate seeker & non-seeker).	Arora NK (2008)	√
Cancer Information Seeking (Online)	Cancer/Health Information seeking on the Internet (authors don’t adequately explain how they derived this measure)	Finney-Rutten (2009)	√	√
	Have you ever visited an Internet web site to learn specifically about cancer? (yes/no)	Hay JL (2009)		√
	Ever looked for information about cancer…source=Internet (Internet/Other)	Chen (2014)	√
	Ever looked for information about cancer…source =Internet (Internet seeker/Non- Internet seeker/Non-seeker)	Kontos (2012)			√
	Respondents’ Internet use for cancer-specific information in the past 12 months was assessed: 1 (did not use the Internet to look for health or medial information), 2 (used the Internet for cancer-unspecific health information), 3 (used the Internet for cancer-specific information); M = 2.02, SD = .81.	Shim M (2008)	√
Skin Cancer Information Seeking (Online)	Looked for information on the Internet about protecting themselves from the sun (in the past 12 months) (yes/no)	Hay JL (2009)		√
Cancer Information Seeking Experiences	Based on the results of your most recent search for information on cancer, how much do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements: It took a lot of effort to get the information you needed You felt frustrated during your search for the information You were concerned about the quality of the information The information you found was too hard to understand Dichotomized (All): strongly agree/agree versus disagree/strongly disagree	Zhao X (2010)		√
Cancer Information Seeking Experience (ISEE) Scale	Based on the results of your most recent search for information on cancer, how much do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements: You wanted more information, but did not know where to find it It took a lot of effort to get the information you needed You did not have the time to get all the information you needed You felt frustrated during your search for the information You were concerned about the quality of the information The information you found was too hard to understand Scores were coded as low/medium/high	Chen (2014)	√
		Arora (2007)	√
		Kim (2007)	√
Cancer Information Overload	There are so many different recommendations about preventing cancer it’s hard to know which ones to follow. (Agree/Disagree)	Kealy (2010)	√	√
		Kim (2007)
Cancer Information Seeking Self-Efficacy	Overall, how confident are you that you could get advice or information about cancer if you needed it?	Hay JL (2015)		√
		Chen (2014)	√
	HINTS 2003: 4-point Likert scale was used (very confident/somewhat confident/slightly confident/not confident at all HINTS 2005 and beyond: 5-point Likert scale: 1=completely confident/5=not confident at all)
	• Dichotomized: completely/very confident versus somewhat/a little/not confident)	Zhao X (2010)		√
	• Reverse coded: 5=completely confident to 1=not confident at all)	Zhao X (2009)		√
Cancer/Health Information-Seeking (Summary Score)	The following questions were used to calculate a summary score: Have you ever looked for information about cancer from any source? (yes/no) Have you ever visited an Internet website to learn specifically about cancer? (yes/no) In the past 12 months, have you read the health sections of a newspaper or magazine? (yes/no) Range: 0–1; Mean: 0.40 (SE=0.01)	Hay JL (2015)		√
Cancer Information Seeking/Paying Attention to Media Sources	Paying attention to media sources (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, Internet) AND ever looked for information about cancer (1-pay attention a little/not at all OR no seek; 2=pay attention a lot/some OR seek (range: 6–12)	Finney-Rutten (2005)	√
Cancer Information Seeking * Scanning	Pay attention and seeking variables were combined to create a typology of cancer information scanning and seeking behavior (SBB). The categories of SSB are: ‘low- scan=no seekers, low-scan=seekers, high-scan=no seekers, high-scan=seekers.	Shim M (2006)	√