Information avoidance is associated with lower willingness to be screened for dementia

Background: Fear of developing Alzheimer's disease and other dementias could motivate defensive responses to dementia information, including public health messaging, and reduce willingness to undergo screening or diagnostic testing for the disease. Objective: We sought to assess the pervasiveness of dementia information avoidance and test whether it is associated with lower willingness to be screened for dementia. We also tested whether lower generalized self-efficacy is associated with higher dementia information avoidance, as the former might be a point of intervention for decreasing defensive information avoidance. Methods: Survey respondents (N = 285 recruited from Prolific; 34.7% ≥ 60 years old) answered questions about tendencies to avoid information about dementia, generalized self-efficacy, willingness to be screened for dementia, perceived risk for and worry about developing dementia, perceived preventability of dementia and dementia knowledge. Results: Nearly half of respondents believed they were somewhat (43.2%) or very (6.7%) likely to get dementia in their lifetimes. About a quarter were moderately (16.8%) or extremely (8.4%) worried about getting dementia. Although willingness to be screened was high (91.9%), there was a subgroup of respondents (9.5%) who tended to avoid dementia information and this was associated with being less likely to be willing to be screened for dementia (b = -0.40, 95% CI = -0.55, −0.25, p < 0.001). Having lower generalized self-efficacy was associated with greater dementia information avoidance (b = -0.31, 95% CI = -0.45, −0.17, p < 0.001). Conclusions: Communication about dementia risk and prevention might include strategies for enhancing agency beliefs, such as self-efficacy, in order to reduce the potential for defensive avoidance.