Patient-focused internet interventions in reproductive medicine: a scoping review.

Background: The Internet has revolutionized fertility care since it became a popular source of information and support for infertile patients in the last decade. The aim of this scoping review is to map (i) the main categories of patient-focused Internet interventions within fertility care, (ii) the detailed composition of the interventions and (iii) how these interventions were evaluated.

Methods: A literature search used various 'Internet' and 'Infertility' search terms to identify relevant studies published up to 1 September 2011.

Chat about what matters most: an analysis of chat contributions posted to an outpatient fertility website.

A content analysis of chat utterances generated by in vitro fertilization (IVF) patients and healthcare professionals revealed that most chat is about the treatment itself and not about childlessness; 56% discloses psychological aspects, 27% physical aspects, and 17% social aspects of the treatment; and that accounts of both external and internal coping behaviors could be identified.

IVF patients show three types of online behaviour.

Background: The internet introduces new ways to deal with stress. However, it is unclear how its resources are used in everyday life. Using a web-based personal health record (PHR), we observed the patient's online behaviour and linked this to distress, theories on dealing with stress and demographics.

Dynamics of Internet usage during the stages of in vitro fertilization.

Hospitals and clinics develop Internet strategies to emancipate and empower their patient population. At Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, we developed an Internet-based personal health record that provides patients with general and personal information about their treatment and that provides facilities for communication with fellow patients and with physicians. Because not much is known about information and communication needs of IVF and ICSI patients in relation to their treatment, we observed the intensity of use of this personal health record during the various stages of IVF treatment.

Empowering patients undergoing in vitro fertilization by providing Internet access to medical data.

Objective: To study the effect of an Internet-based personal health record on the empowerment of patients undergoing IVF.

Design: Randomized clinical trial.

Setting: Patients undergoing IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) in an academic research environment.