Social Positioning Theory as a lens for exploring health information seeking and decision making

In this article I use Social Positioning Theory to explore the experiences of women as they interact with and make sense of evolving health information mediated by formal and informal sources. I investigate how women position themselves within their accounts of information seeking, and the influence of positioning on interactions with health professionals (HPs). Interviewed women gathered and valued information from a range of sources, and were likely to position themselves as autonomous, rather than collaborative or dependent. Faced with evolving health information, women felt responsible not only for information seeking, but also for making sense of gathered and encountered information. Participants did, however, value information provided by HPs and were likely to view decision making as collaborative when HPs fostered information exchange, appeared to appreciate different types of knowledge and cognitive authority, and supported women in their quests for information. Implications for shared decision making are discussed.