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Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND: Recently, many cancer patients have been using the Internet for information with which to make informed choices. We are not aware of any studies that investigate this Internet use among breast cancer patients or women. OBJECTIVE: We investigate the prevalence and predictors of Internet u...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fogel, Joshua, Albert, Steven M, Schnabel, Freya, Ditkoff, Beth Ann, Neugut, Alfred I
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Gunther Eysenbach 2002
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1761930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12554556
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4.2.e9
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author Fogel, Joshua
Albert, Steven M
Schnabel, Freya
Ditkoff, Beth Ann
Neugut, Alfred I
author_facet Fogel, Joshua
Albert, Steven M
Schnabel, Freya
Ditkoff, Beth Ann
Neugut, Alfred I
author_sort Fogel, Joshua
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Recently, many cancer patients have been using the Internet for information with which to make informed choices. We are not aware of any studies that investigate this Internet use among breast cancer patients or women. OBJECTIVE: We investigate the prevalence and predictors of Internet use for medical information among women with breast cancer. METHODS: We used a cross-sectional design and approached 251 women with breast cancer being treated at a university-based hospital. We successfully interviewed 188 (74.9%), through mailed self-report questionnaires. Medical information was obtained from the hospital tumor registry. We used t tests and chi-square tests to assess differences in Internet use for breast health issues and binary logistic regression to estimate the odds ratio (OR) for predictors of Internet use for breast health issues. RESULTS: In our sample, 41.5% of patients used the Internet for medical information. Internet users differed from nonusers on income level, educational level, and by race/ethnicity. After controlling for the other predictors, Internet users had a higher income (OR = 3.10; 95% CI = 1.09-8.85) and tended to be more educated (OR = 2.59; 95% CI = 0.87-7.74) than nonusers. There was also a suggestion that those of nonwhite ethnicity were less likely to use the Internet (OR = 0.39; 95% CI = 0.14-1.11). Increasing age, length of time since diagnosis, and breast cancer stage had no effect. CONCLUSIONS: A substantial proportion of breast cancer patients used the Internet as a source of information. Patients with higher income or education, and patients of white race/ethnicity are more likely to use the Internet for breast health issues.
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spelling pubmed-17619302007-01-03 Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer Fogel, Joshua Albert, Steven M Schnabel, Freya Ditkoff, Beth Ann Neugut, Alfred I J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Recently, many cancer patients have been using the Internet for information with which to make informed choices. We are not aware of any studies that investigate this Internet use among breast cancer patients or women. OBJECTIVE: We investigate the prevalence and predictors of Internet use for medical information among women with breast cancer. METHODS: We used a cross-sectional design and approached 251 women with breast cancer being treated at a university-based hospital. We successfully interviewed 188 (74.9%), through mailed self-report questionnaires. Medical information was obtained from the hospital tumor registry. We used t tests and chi-square tests to assess differences in Internet use for breast health issues and binary logistic regression to estimate the odds ratio (OR) for predictors of Internet use for breast health issues. RESULTS: In our sample, 41.5% of patients used the Internet for medical information. Internet users differed from nonusers on income level, educational level, and by race/ethnicity. After controlling for the other predictors, Internet users had a higher income (OR = 3.10; 95% CI = 1.09-8.85) and tended to be more educated (OR = 2.59; 95% CI = 0.87-7.74) than nonusers. There was also a suggestion that those of nonwhite ethnicity were less likely to use the Internet (OR = 0.39; 95% CI = 0.14-1.11). Increasing age, length of time since diagnosis, and breast cancer stage had no effect. CONCLUSIONS: A substantial proportion of breast cancer patients used the Internet as a source of information. Patients with higher income or education, and patients of white race/ethnicity are more likely to use the Internet for breast health issues. Gunther Eysenbach 2002-11-22 /pmc/articles/PMC1761930/ /pubmed/12554556 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4.2.e9 Text en © Joshua Fogel, Steven M Albert, Freya Schnabel, Beth Ann Ditkoff, Alfred I Neugut. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 22.11.2002. Except where otherwise noted, articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, including full bibliographic details and the URL (see "please cite as" above), and this statement is included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Fogel, Joshua
Albert, Steven M
Schnabel, Freya
Ditkoff, Beth Ann
Neugut, Alfred I
Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title_full Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title_fullStr Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title_full_unstemmed Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title_short Use of the Internet by Women with Breast Cancer
title_sort use of the internet by women with breast cancer
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1761930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12554556
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4.2.e9
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