Cervical cancer patient information-seeking behaviors, information needs, and information sources in South Korea

Abstract

Cervical cancer patients' need of cancer information varied with age and treatment phase. These findings should help guide the development of educational materials tailored to the needs of individual patients.

What kind of cancer information do Internet users need?

“…Among our study participants, who were de facto Internet users, the Internet was the most common source of cancer information, but in other studies, the physician was the primary source of cancer information for cancer patients [7,8,11] and caregivers [11], and the Internet was rarely cited by cancer patients [5,6,9,10,12] or caregivers [6]. These differences may arise from the use of different survey methodologies.…”

“…Other surveys of patients and caregivers were conducted by interview or telephone survey while our survey was conducted online. Nevertheless, those with access to the Internet use it continuously for medical information [5], especially young cancer patients [5,10,12,23]. In one study, Internet use was higher among women than men [24], but we cannot compare those results directly with ours because our sample was self-selected rather than random.…”

“…Time since diagnosis is one such factor. In a study among Korean cervical cancer patients, the most needed type of information at the time of diagnosis concerned 'treatment', but after treatment it concerned 'self-care methods' [12]. In a US study of young adult cancer patients, the high need for information concerning 'treatment' was met, but the similarly high need for information concerning 'diet and nutrition', 'exercise', 'complementary and alternative health care services', and 'assistance with health insurance' was not [22].…”

“…Cancer patients and their caregivers look for information from various sources, including health professionals, family and friends, print materials, television, radio, the Internet, and other survivors [3,5,[7][8][9][10][11][12]. Recently, the Internet is one of the most widely used sources of medical information and is becoming increasingly popular in all levels of society [6,13].…”

Factors Related to Cancer Information Scanning and Seeking Behavior among High School Students in Korea

“…Previous studies on cancer information include papers on cancer information scanning and seeking and the requirements of cancer patients (Carlsson, 2000;Rees and Bath, 2000;Semple and McGowan, 2002), the information scanning and seeking experience of the families of cancer patients (Fukui, 2004;James, 2007), the relationship between cancer information scanning and seeking experience and the adoption of cancer screening (Ling et al, 2006;Coughlin et al, 2007), the use of alternative therapies about which patients learned during their cancer information scanning and seeking experience (Owen et al, 2003;Evans et al, 2007), the sociodemographic factors affecting cancer information scanning and seeking , the practical application of cancer information by medical professionals and the requirements for this application (Lim et al, 2003), the cancer information screening and seeking experience of patients with cervical cancer, the degree of information they require, and the sources of their information (Noh et al, 2009), and the degree of cancer screening information required by common people (Kye, 2010). These studies mostly analyzed the cancer information scanning and seeking experience of and the degree of information required by health professionals or adults.…”