Internet Cancer Information Use by Newly Diagnosed Individuals and Interactions With the Health System

Abstract

Nearly 40% of Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and people with cancer are increasingly turning to the Internet to bolster support and information received from health-care providers. However, little is known about the role of the Internet in patients' interactions with the health-care system. The goals of this study are (1) to qualitatively explore the content of commonly used websites from a holistic nursing perspective, (2) to explore the prompts to use the Internet and how it informs the ways patients utilize and interact with health services, and (3) to document the types of Internet resources and amounts of usage. This study is guided by a constructivist mixed methods design. Interpretive description will guide the overarching qualitative component, including an analysis of data from commonly used websites and interviews with 16 newly diagnosed individuals. Openended interviews will clarify, through exploration, the role of the Internet in participants' health system interactions. A survey of Internet use will add insight and depth about where, when, and how participants use the Internet. All interviews and website data will be analyzed using thematic analysis. Descriptive statistics will illustrate a summary of Internet usage. Triangulation of findings will provide oncology nurses and interdisciplinary team members with insight into how patients' use of the Internet informs their use of health services. Methodologically, this study advances the use of qualitative methods for websites analysis, on which relatively little has been documented.

Ways of knowing on the Internet: A qualitative review of cancer websites from a critical nursing perspective

“…In the second phase, 19 individuals diagnosed with cancer were interviewed about their use of the Internet for cancer information as part of a larger study. Specifics of the larger study and full content of the interviews are beyond the scope of this paper, but further detail can be located in the published protocol (Haase, Thomas, & Gifford, ). One objective of these interviews was to ask patients about specific websites they used; these websites were added to the initial sample on an ongoing basis.…”

Exploring the Expansive Properties of Interpretive Description: An Invitation to Anti-oppressive Researchers

“…Consequently, the what may be overlooked and theory may be generated prematurely, leading to incorrect or misleading assumptions in practice. However, through investigating the what, we can learn about the embedded complexity of practice-relevant issues, such as what internet information newly diagnosed individuals with cancer access (Haase et al, 2016) or and what experiences Indigenous mothers caring for infants have in the health care system (Wright et al, 2019). We can also identify challenges and resources for frontline practitioners, such as investigating their emotional well-being, or exploring the ethical and professional integrity dilemmas they face in their work (Thorne et al, 2018; Williams & Haverkamp, 2015).…”

The Commodification of Cancer: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Cancer Websites in China

“…Web-based health information plays the same important role as doctors for people seeking health information (Blanch-Hartigan & Viswanath, 2015) and it tends to influence people's decision making on main-taining healthy lifestyles (Koteyko, 2009). Given the importance of web-based information, previous studies examined cancer-related websites in terms of website information or quality improvement and its usefulness (see Clayman et al, 2008;Snyder et al, 2013;Warren et al, 2014), website design tenets and the application of theoretical components (see Ivory & Megraw, 2005;Pendergrass et al, 2001;Turchin & Lehman, 2000;Whitten et al, 2008;Zhang & von Dran, 2000), websites' intervening role on patient-doctor relationships (see Haase et al, 2016;Hou & Shim, 2010;Lewis et al, 2009;McMullan, 2006;Rider et al, 2014), and the effects of multimodality on users' perception and communicative behaviour (see Bol et al, 2013;Nguyen et al, 2017;Spiegelhalter et al, 2011;Stellamanns et al, 2017).…”