Spontaneously published illness stories on a website for young women with breast cancer: do writers and themes reflect the wider population?

This study examined writer characteristics and themes written about in a set of 167 spontaneously published stories on a Dutch website for young women with breast cancer. The stories were coded for 6 disease characteristics and 16 themes. Coding results were compared with the characteristics of young women with breast cancer in a hospital cancer register and to the frequency of problems among young breast cancer patients participating in quantitative studies.

How breast cancer patients want to search for and retrieve information from stories of other patients on the internet: an online randomized controlled experiment.

Background: Other patients' stories on the Internet can give patients information, support, reassurance, and practical advice.

Objectives: We examined which search facility for online stories resulted in patients' satisfaction and search success.

Methods: This study was a randomized controlled experiment with a 2x2 factorial design conducted online.

An online lifestyle diary with a persuasive computer assistant providing feedback on self-management.

In accordance with the global trend, in The Netherlands approximately 45% of the population is overweight. Existing studies show that patient self-management can reduce these figures, but medical non-adherence is a persistent problem. eHealth can potentially increase adherence to self-management.

What makes an "informed patient"? The impact of contextualization on the search for health information on the Internet.

The Internet is nowadays a powerful medium and can help patients to become better-informed citizens. Increasingly, citizens are searching for health information on the Internet. The Internet-based resource often acts as a virtual healthcare professional.

Illness stories on the Internet: features of websites disclosing breast cancer patients' illness stories in the Dutch language.

Objective: To examine the way in which breast cancer patients' illness stories in the Dutch language are disclosed on the Internet.

Methods: Websites containing Dutch illness stories written by breast cancer patients were selected using a search engine on the Internet. A checklist was developed based on a theoretical framework for analysing communication processes in order to examine the selected websites.