Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jun 20, 2021
Date Accepted: Mar 26, 2022
Anxiety information needs: What people know about anxiety treatment and what they want to know.
ABSTRACT
Background:
There are several treatments available for anxiety, which can make treatment decisions difficult. Resources are often produced with limited knowledge of what is of interest to consumers. This is a problem because there is a limited understanding of what people want to know when considering help for anxiety.
Objective:
This study examined the information needs and preferences concerning treatment options for anxiety. The aims were: (a) what information do people consider to be important when they are considering treatment options for anxiety; (b) what information have people received on psychological and medication treatment in the past; (c) how did they receive this information in the past; and (d) are there any differences in information needs between specific samples and demographic groups.
Methods:
Using a web-based survey, we recruited participants from a peer-support association website (n = 288) and from clinic samples (psychology n = 113, psychiatry n = 64).
Results:
Overall, participants in all samples wanted information on a broad range of topics pertaining to anxiety treatments. However, they reported not receiving the amount of information they desired. Participants in the clinic samples rated the importance of information topics higher than did the self-help sample. When considering anxiety treatment information received in the past, the highest proportion of respondents indicated receiving information from informational websites, family doctors, and mental health practitioners. In terms of what respondents want to learn about, high ratings of importance were given to topics concerning treatment effectiveness, how it works, advantages/disadvantages, what happens when it stops, and common side effects.
Conclusions:
It is challenging for individuals to obtain anxiety-related information on the range of topics they desire through currently available information sources. It is also difficult to provide comprehensive information in a typical clinical visit. Providing evidence-based information online and in brochure format would help consumers make informed choices and would support advice provided by health professionals.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.