The use of weblogs within palliative care: A systematic literature review

Ngwenya, Nothando; Mills, Stella

doi:10.1177/1460458213475894

Cited by 15 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In this sense, this medium represents a unique opportunity to improve the transmission of knowledge in the field of health, due to the interactive communication it facilitates between health professionals and citizens (Bissonnette-Maheux et al, 2015). This is reflected in the current growth of what some authors have referred to as the "medical blogosphere" (Kovic, Lulic, & Brumini, 2008): a large collection of blogs dealing with all kinds of health-related issues, from general aspects to such specific issues as Palliative Care (Ngwenya & Mills, 2014) or Diabetes (Kaufman, 2010). Blogs are even used in training biomedical students, frequently to engage learners and enhance education, because students may still achieve benefits by engaging in emotional disclosure and personal reflection (Becker & Freberg, 2014;Garrity, Jones, VanderZwan, de la Rocha, & Epstein, 2014;Sterling, Leung, Wright, & Bishop, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation

Caballero

Castillo

Ballesteros-Yáñez

et al. 2019

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

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Tools for online collaboration are becoming increasingly prevalent in recent years. Certain characteristics of these tools encourage this proliferation: they are easy to use, always available, allow knowledge to be built collaboratively and disseminated quickly through social networks, and are usually free of charge. In this context, blogs are becoming increasingly important in the field of health as digital newspapers and magazines that support a large number of multimedia formats. The possibility to subscribe to blogs and their availability in formats adaptable to mobile devices mean their content can be taken anywhere. Although the use of blogs is well-established among Health Science professionals, their use among university professors as a component of the teaching strategies in these disciplines is much less common, and thus the benefits, risks and limitations of using blogging as a pedagogical tool are poorly understood. In this preliminary evaluation of a pedagogy, a public WordPress-based blog was developed for the Nutrition and Dietetics module of the undergraduate course in Nursing at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). This was primarily intended as way to use ICT to increase the level of student engagement and interest in learning the subject, but also as a way to introduce future health professionals to the world of blogging. This paper describes our experiences with this pedagogical project and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the use of blogs in university Health Sciences teaching. Incorporating this tool into teaching methodologies takes advantages of the theoretical possibilities it offers, which include crucial aspects such as developing critical thinking, acquiring knowledge, answering questions from students, and enabling new mechanisms to develop the skills that must be acquired. However, the challenges and inconveniences are also highlighted; these are principally the lack of motivation and the low participation of the students. By analysing the outcomes of this preliminary evaluation of a pedagogy, it is concluded that blogs are a very useful tool, although it is suggested that the literature shows a certain bias toward the publication of successful trials.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation

Caballero

Castillo

Ballesteros-Yáñez

et al. 2019

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

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“…Three reviews focused on cancer, [21][22][23] others did not limit their inclusion criteria a specific disease. The reviews were carried out by research teams based in the following countries: USA (9), 17,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] UK (6), 16,23,[32][33][34][35] Australia (2), 14,36 Canada (1) 22 Chile (1), 15 Denmark (1) 37 and Brazil (1) 38 .…”

Section: Characteristics Of the Included Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[14][15][16][17][22][23][24][25]27,30,31,34,37 EHRs were used to record symptoms 27,34 while telephone and videoconferencing were frequently used to monitor, assess and treat symptoms. 15,22,23,25,30,37,39 Some reviews described positive impacts of DHIs on symptom management, while most reviews identified inconsistent evidence or noted that evaluation of impact in many studies was lacking. In their review of telephone follow-up for patients with advanced cancer, Zhou et al 22 concluded that telephone follow-up is a feasible alternative to hospital followup for symptom palliation, and reduces travel burden.…”

Section: Symptom Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Health Interventions in Palliative Care: A Systematic Meta-Review and Evidence Synthesis

Finucane

O’Donnell

Lugton

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Digital health interventions (DHIs) have the potential to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of palliative care but heterogeneity amongst existing systematic reviews presents a challenge for evidence synthesis. This rigorous meta-review applied a structured search of 10 databases from 2006 to 2020, revealing 21 relevant systematic reviews, encompassing 332 unique publications. Most reviews were moderate quality. Interventions delivered via videoconferencing (17%), electronic healthcare records (16%) and phone (13%) were most frequently described. DHIs were typically used in palliative care for education (20%), symptom management (15%), decision-making support (13%), information provision or management (13%), and communication (9%). Positive impacts were reported on education, decision-making, information-sharing, communication, and costs. Impacts on symptom management were either positive or showed no harmful effects. However often DHIs were described but not evaluated. Responsive pragmatic research designs are now needed to guide further evaluation, implementation and to inform future service innovation.

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“…Recently, a new group of notables have entered the healthcare consciousness: patients who keep blogs [ 9 ] where they describe their healthcare experiences. A cancer patient in a palliative stage might also blog about his or her experiences [ 10 , 11 ]. Some of these blogs are read and commented on by thousands of followers, and are even quoted in traditional news media.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heed or disregard a cancer patient’s critical blogging? An experimental study of two different framing strategies

et al. 2016

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BackgroundWe have examined healthcare staff attitudes of toward a blogging cancer patient who publishes critical posts about her treatment and their possible effect on patient-staff relationships and treatment decisions.MethodsWe used two versions of a questionnaire containing a vignette based on a modified real case involving a 39-year-old cancer patient who complained on her blog about how she was encountered and the treatment she received. Initially she was not offered a new, and expensive treatment, which might have influenced her perception of further encounters. In one version of the vignette, the team decides to put extra effort into both encounters and offers the expensive new cancer treatment. In the other version, the team decides to follow the clinic’s routine to the letter. Subsequently, blog postings became either positive or negative in tone. We also divided participants into value-neutral and value-influenced groups (regarding personal values) by asking how their trust in healthcare would be affected if the team’s suggestion were followed.ResultsA total of 56 % (95 % CI: 51–61) of the respondents faced with a team decision to ‘do something-extra’ in encounters would act in accordance with this ambition. Concerning treatment, 32 % (95 % CI: 28–38) would follow the team’s decision to offer a new and expensive treatment. A large majority of those who received the “follow-routine” version agreed to do so in encountering [94 % (95 % CI: 91–97)]. Similar proportions were found regarding treatment [86 % (95 % CI: 82–90)].A total of 83 % (95 % CI: 76–91) of the value-neutral participants who received the “do-something-extra” version stated that they would act as the team suggested regarding encounters, while 57 % (95 % CI: 47–67) would do so in regard to treatment. Among the value-influenced participants who received the “do-something-extra” version, 45 % (95 % CI: 38–51) stated that they would make an extra effort to accommodate the patient and her needs, while the proportion for treatment was 22 % (95 % CI: 16–27). Among those who had received the “follow-routine” version, a large majority agreed, and no difference was indicated between the value-neutral and the value-influenced participants.ConclusionThe present study indicates that healthcare staff is indeed influenced by reading a patient’s critical blog entries, largely regarding encounters, but also concerning treatment is concerned. Value-neutral healthcare personnel seem to exhibit a pragmatic attitude and be more inclined to heed and respond to a patient whose criticism may well be warranted. The study also indicates that healthcare staff is partly positive or negative to future blogging patients depending on how the issue has been framed.For future research we suggest as a bold hypothesis that the phrase “clinical routine” might conceal power aspects masquerading as adopted ethical principles.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12910-016-0115-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to ...

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The use of weblogs within palliative care: A systematic literature review

Cited by 15 publications

References 16 publications

Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation

Blogging as a tool for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in health sciences: a preliminary evaluation

Digital Health Interventions in Palliative Care: A Systematic Meta-Review and Evidence Synthesis

Heed or disregard a cancer patient’s critical blogging? An experimental study of two different framing strategies

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