Tag Archives: Faculty

Lack of reciprocity and low confidence in talking about cancer predict topic avoidance in couples

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Drs. Maria Venetis (Purdue), Kathryn Greene (Rutgers), Maria Checton (College of Saint Elizabeth), and Kate Magsamen-Conrad (BGSU) have a new publication out in the Journal of Health Communication. 

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In this article, the authors use the Disclose Decision-Making Model to explore cancer-related topic avoidance among cancer patients and their partners. Participants include 95 dyads in which 1 partner had been diagnosed and/or treated for cancer. Variables of interest include death-, future-, sexuality-, and burden-related topic avoidance and dimensions of the Disclosure Decision-Making Model including information assessment, receiver assessment, relational quality, and discloser efficacy. Data were analyzed using linear regressions. Findings suggest that lack of reciprocity and efficacy are predictors of topic avoidance. The authors discuss implications of findings and suggests direction for future research.

 

Full text is available here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/zs6uPVWTseC96YPkhj6c/full#.VL_H61ptTt4

 

Venetis, M. K., Greene, K., Checton, M. G., & Magsamen-Conrad, K. (2015, online first). Decision making in cancer-related topic avoidance. Journal of Health Communication. doi: 10.1080/10810730.2014.96536

 

TOP PAPER AWARD for docmc and SMC graduate students Wang, Tettah, and Lee (Univ. GA)

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Dr. Magsamen-Conrad (dept. of communication) and SMC graduate students Fang Wang and Dinah Tettah, and University of Georgia graduate student Yen-I Lee received a Top Paper Award from the Communication and Technology Interest group. They will present the paper in April at the annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association.

Their research discovered support for the ability of components of the Unified Theory of Adoption and Use of Technology to predict New Communication Technology intention and use (42%, controlling for age and gender), with facilitating conditions alone accounting for 26% of the variance. They were also able to explain more than 50% of the variance in e-health literacy combining UTAUT variables and CEW Fluency (computer-email-web fluency, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy explained 54% variance of e-health literacy). Finally, they found significant difference between generational groups across all variables, further explaining generational effects on attitudes towards NCTs and e-health literacy, which may have implications for health self-management. Results underscore a need to highlight the broader benefits of NCT literacy as opposed to representing it as a generational phenomenon to improve e-health literacy of older generations.

Magsamen-Conrad, K., Wang, F, Tettah, D., & Lee, Y-I. (2015, April). Generational differences in NCTs: An intergroup investigation of UTAUT determinants, computer-email-web fluency, and e-health literacy. Paper to be presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Communication Association (Communication and Technology Interest Group Submission), Philadelphia, PA.