Background Breast cancer has become one of the most frequently diagnosed carcinomas and the leading cause of cancer deaths. The substantial growth in the number of breast cancer patients has put great pressure on health services. Meanwhile, the information patients need has increased and become more complicated. Therefore, a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of their information needs is urgently needed to improve the quality of health care. However, previous studies related to the information needs of breast cancer patients have focused on different perspectives and have only contributed to individual results. A systematic review and synthesis of breast cancer patients’ information needs is critical. Objective This paper aims to systematically identify, evaluate, and synthesize existing primary qualitative research on the information needs of breast cancer patients. Methods Web of Science, EBSCO, Scopus, ProQuest, PubMed, PsycINFO, The Cochrane Library, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature were searched on February 12 and July 9, 2019, to collect relevant studies. A Google Scholar search, interpersonal network recommendations, and reference chaining were also conducted. Eligible studies included qualitative or mixed-methods studies focusing on the information needs (across the cancer continuum) of breast cancer patients or their social networks. Subsequently, a Critical Appraisals Skills Programme checklist was used to assess the quality of included research. The results, findings, and discussions were extracted. Data analysis was guided by the theory-generating meta-synthesis and grounded theory approach. Results Three themes, 19 categories, and 55 concepts emerged: (1) incentives (physical abnormality, inquiry from others, subjective norm, and problems during appointments); (2) types of information needs (prevention, etiology, diagnosis, clinical manifestation, treatment, prognosis, impact and resumption of normal life, scientific research, and social assistance); (3) moderating variables (attitudes, health literacy, demographic characteristics, disease status, as well as political and cultural environment). The studies revealed that the information needs of breast cancer patients were triggered by different incentives. Subsequently, the patients sought a variety of information among different stages of the cancer journey. Five types of variables were also found to moderate the formation of information needs. Conclusions This study contributes to a thorough model of information needs among breast cancer patients and provides practical suggestions for health and information professionals.

PurposeThis study aims to investigate how the public formed their need for information in the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Exploring the formation of information needs can reveal why the public's information needs differ and provide insights on targeted information service during health crises at an essential level.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 46 participants and analyzed using the grounded theory approach. Concepts, sub-categories and categories were developed, and a model was built to examine how the public formed the need for information about the pandemic.FindingsThe authors found that participants were stimulated by information asymmetry, severity of the pandemic and regulations to control the pandemic, which triggered their perceptions of information credibility, threat and social approval. After the participants perceived that there was a threat, it activated their basic needs and they actively formed the need for information based on cognitive activities. Moreover, information delivered by different senders resulted in a passive need for information. Participants' individual traits also influenced their perceptions after being stimulated.Research limitations/implicationsLong-term follow-up research is needed to help researchers identify more detailed perspectives and do comparative studies. Besides, this study conducted interviews through WeChat voice calls and telephone calls, and might be limited compared with face-to-face interviews.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide theoretical contributions to the information needs research and practical implications for information services and public health management.Originality/valueThere is little systematic research on how the public formed information needs in the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak.

This study explored users' criteria for citation decisions and investigated the effects on users' intention to cite using a mixed-method approach. A qualitative study was conducted first, where 16 citing criteria were identified based on interviews and inductive analysis. The findings were then used to develop hypotheses and extend the information adoption model. A questionnaire was designed to collect data from users in Chinese universities to test the research model. The findings indicated that pleasure, topicality, and functionality significantly increased users' perceived information usefulness, while familiarity and accessibility significantly enhanced users' perceived ease of use. Information usefulness and information ease of use further contributed to users' intention to cite with adjusted R 2 equaling 44.6%. It is also found that perceived academic quality based on 5 antecedents (i.e., reliability, comprehensiveness, novelty, author credibility, and source reputation) significantly increased users' pleasure. Implications and limitations were provided.

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