BackgroundThe purpose of this article is to describe and evaluate the methodology of online focus group discussions within the setting of paediatric oncology.MethodsQualitative study consisting of separate moderated asynchronous online discussion groups with 7 paediatric cancer patients (aged 8–17), 11 parents, and 18 survivors of childhood cancer (aged 8–17 at diagnosis).ResultsAll three participant groups could be actively engaged over a one-week period. Respondents highly valued the flexibility and convenience of logging in at their own time and place to join the discussion. Adolescent patients and survivors emphasized that the anonymity experienced made them feel comfortable to express their views in detail. The findings indicate a strong preference for online group discussions across all participant groups.ConclusionThe findings show that online focus group methodology is a feasible tool for collecting qualitative data within the setting of paediatric oncology, and may offer new opportunities to collect data in other hard-to-include populations. The evaluations seem to indicate that the online group discussions have given participants an opportunity to articulate their experiences and views in a way they might not have done in a traditional group discussion.

This article describes the stepwise development of the website 'E-info gene(ca)'. The website provides counselees in breast cancer genetic counseling with computer-tailored information and a question prompt prior to their first consultation. Counselees generally do not know what to expect from genetic counseling and they tend to have a passive role, receiving large amounts of relatively standard information. Using the "intervention mapping approach," we developed E-info gene(ca) aiming to enhance counselees' realistic expectations and participation during genetic counseling. The information on this website is tailored to counselees' individual situation (e.g., the counselee's age and cancer history). The website covers the topics of the genetic counseling process, breast cancer risk, meaning of being a carrier of a cancer gene mutation, emotional consequences and hereditary breast cancer. Finally, a question prompt encourages counselees to prepare questions for their genetic counseling visit.

This article explores the use and evaluation of a pre-visit website which aims to prepare counselees who are the first in their family to request breast cancer genetic counseling. This website E-info gene(ca) provides computer-tailored information and a blank question prompt sheet (QPS) on which counselees can formulate their questions for the consultation. The objectives of this study are: first, to assess which factors influence the use of E-info gene(ca), including the duration of site and page views, the influence of topic sequence in the menu bar on the sequence of page views, and the relation between website use and the use of the QPS; second, to explore counselees' evaluations of E-info gene(ca) and relations with counselee characteristics. User statistics were analyzed to describe duration of site and page views. Multivariate analyses were used to predict duration of web and page views, sequence of page views, QPS use, and site evaluations. Independent variables were sociodemographic background, disease status, psychological functioning, and information needs. All 101 counselees who were provided with a login accessed the website and spent, on average, 21 min viewing the website. Counselees affected with breast cancer spent more time on the website than unaffected counselees. Half of all page views were within the sequence of topics in the menu and older counselees, and those who made less use of the internet more often navigated according to the menu sequence than others. Having viewed information about why it is important to ask questions increased QPS use. Counselees who had higher information needs considered the information more helpful. This hospital-provided website for breast cancer genetic counselees was accessible and was evaluated positively, even concerning older counselees and those who had not searched the internet for information about hereditary cancer. Counselees might navigate hospital-provided websites more in line with the sequence of topics in the menu bar, than generally accessible health websites.

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