An Investigation of the Informational Needs of Ovarian Cancer Patients and Their Supporters

摘要

Numerous Internet-based peer support groups exist to support the informational needs of patients withchronic illnesses. By analyzing the discussions available in the forum of a major ovarian cancer supportgroup, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA), this study investigates the type of information thatnewly diagnosed ovarian cancer patients and their supporters seek. Using content analysis, 206 publiclyavailable discussion posts exchanged on OCNA were analyzed by two researchers. Each discussion pointwas classified into one of the three broad themes that emerged: ovarian cancer-specific, treatment-related,or coping information. The discussion points were further analyzed using a multinomial logit model topredict the type of the desired information based on the role of the person looking for the information, thedisease phase in which the information was sought, the emotional status of the information seeker, and thestage of the cancer. The results suggest that there is a wide variety of information seekers with divergentgoals. Treatment-related material was the most sought-after information by patients, while copinginformation was most sought by supporters. When forum posts were negative in tone, the informationseekers were more likely to be looking for ovarian cancer-specific information than either treatment-relatedinformation or coping information. This suggests that the presentation of ovarian cancer-specificinformation should be particularly sensitive to the negative emotional state of the people seeking thisinformation.