DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION AND PROBLEM-SOLVING - DECISIONS ABOUT THE TREATMENT OF BREAST-CANCER BY WOMEN ACROSS THE LIFE-SPAN

The 1st study examined the decision making and prose comprehension of 94 women interacting with an authentic, unfolding health scenario abou t breast cancer. The 2nd study involved questionnaire data focusing on the decisions made by 75 women who had been diagnosed with breast can cer. Two major findings emerged from this laboratory and survey resear ch. First, older women sought less information when making treatment d ecisions about breast cancer. However, the outcome of those decisions were equivalent to those of younger women. Second, older women made th ese decisions faster than younger women. In addition, treatment decisi ons were related to prose processing, the type of information underlin ed as important while reading as well as the type of information remem bered about various treatment options.