Cancer is the leading cause of death in Hong Kong, accounting for 24% of registered deaths in 2022 [1]. In 2021, Hong Kong had 38,462 newly diagnosed cancer cases, reflecting a notable 12.5% increase from 2020 within its 7.4 million population [2]. The growing threat of cancer and the rising demand for supportive care highlight the need to understand the information needs and engagement of those affected [3,4,5]. This understanding has implications for enhancing person-centered care and addressing cancer burden at both individual and health system levels [3,4,5].

Information is critical to cancer care and coping during the cancer journey [6, 7]. Seeking information enables individuals with cancer experience, including those directly diagnosed and their families and friends who gain experience from them, to assess the situation, manage uncertainty, maintain a sense of control and normality, facilitate patient-provider communication, and make informed decisions [3, 6, 8]. When information needs are met, it has positive impacts on treatment planning, adherence, quality care, and well-being [9, 10]. However, unmet information needs are common among individuals with cancer experience [4, 11]. A systematic review found that 31–38% of advanced cancer survivors reported lacking sufficient information, with rates among their informal caregivers reaching up to 38% [4]. Another review of Chinese cancer patients revealed that the prevalence of unmet information needs ranged from 37 to 73% [11]. These reviews examined covariates of unmet information needs, including socio-demographics, cancer characteristics, and health conditions, but found inconsistent or no associations [4, 11], highlighting the need for further research on key influences.

Additional literature indicates that when facing cancer uncertainty, some individuals may seek more information to aid coping, while others adopt a blunting approach to avoid further exposure [3, 8, 12]. This suggests that factors beyond unmet information needs may influence individuals’ motivation to seek more cancer information [3, 12]. Accordingly, this study aims to (1) identify factors associated with perceived needs for more information and (2) examine their relationship with the intention to engage further with cancer information among individuals with cancer experience in Hong Kong.

Drawn from health information-seeking theories, including the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking [13] and the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model [14], this study examines key theoretical variables that have demonstrated significance in predicting health information needs and information seeking in non-cancer contexts [12, 15, 16]. Specifically, the variables include: (1) sociodemographic characteristics, including gender, age, income, and education; (2) psychological factors, including worry, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, personal control over health risks, subjective norms, and current knowledge level; and (3) communicative factors, including the ability to access information and perceived usefulness of acquired information [12,13,14,15,16]. While some of these factors have been explored in cancer research, findings remain inconsistent [3, 8, 12, 15, 16, 18]. For instance, younger age, female gender, higher education, and greater income often facilitate cancer information seeking [3, 7, 18], but the effects of cancer worry, perceived cancer risk, perceived norms around staying informed, and perceived control over cancer risk on information needs and seeking behaviors have been mixed [3, 8, 12, 16]. Additionally, studies using the US-based Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) highlight frequent communicative barriers in cancer information seeking, including high effort, frustration with the process, difficulty accessing high-quality information, and confusion with the information [18,19,20]. These negative experiences could hinder continued information engagement among cancer patients and survivors [3, 8]. This study examines these factors to provide an integral understanding of their interplay and offer theory-informed insights for improving the allocation of care resources.