‘Just Google it’—A scoping review of online mental health resources for survivors of breast cancer

Abstract

ObjectiveAs the Internet is a ubiquitous resource for information, we aimed to replicate a patient's Google search to identify and assess the quality of online mental health/wellbeing materials available to support women living with or beyond cancer.MethodsA Google search was performed using a key term search strategy including search strings ‘cancer’, ‘wellbeing’, ‘distress’ and ‘resources’ to identify online resources of diverse formats (i.e., factsheet, website, program, course, video, webinar, e‐book, podcast). The quality evaluation scoring tool (QUEST) was used to analyse the quality of health information provided.ResultsThe search strategy resulted in 283 resources, 117 of which met inclusion criteria across four countries: Australia, USA, UK, and Canada. Websites and factsheets were primarily retrieved. The average QUEST score was 10.04 (highest possible score is 28), indicating low quality, with 92.31% of resources lacking references to sources of information.ConclusionsOur data indicated a lack of evidence‐based support resources and engaging information available online for people living with or beyond cancer. The majority of online resources were non‐specific to breast cancer and lacked authorship and attribution.