Seeking and managing hope: patients' experiences using the Internet for cancer care.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the experiences of patients with cancer using the Internet for information and support to manage the self-care aspects of illness and treatment, including symptom management.


METHODS
Heideggerian hermeneutics branch of phenomenology.


METHODS
The interviews took place in outpatient settings in the northeastern United States, including clinics, patients' homes, and the researchers' office.


METHODS
20 patients self-identified as users of the Internet for cancer care.


METHODS
Data were collected by informal interviews that provided the narrative stories for hermeneutic analysis.


METHODS
Internet use for cancer care and patient-provider relationship.


RESULTS
Five related themes and one constitutive pattern described patients' experiences. The themes were retrieving and filtering Internet information according to personal situation by Internet-savvy people in patients' support networks, seeking hope from the newest treatment options while coping with fear in manageable "bytes," self-care for personal illness situations with meaningful information regarding symptom management, empowering patients as partners when Internet information served as a second opinion in decision making and validating treatment decisions, and Internet as providing peer support. The constitutive pattern was Internet use as assisting patients in discovering ways to live with cancer as a chronic illness instead of a death sentence.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with cancer are incorporating Internet use into their cancer care. They perceive changing provider-patient relationships when they participate in treatment decisions.


CONCLUSIONS
Computer-savvy patients and their personal support networks will avail themselves of Internet information, creating the need for new interaction patterns and relationships with providers.
School of Nursing at the University at Buffalo in the State University of New York, USA. sdickers@buffalo.edu
Suzanne S
SS
Dickerson
Marcia
M
Boehmke
Carolann
C
Ogle
Jean K
JK
Brown
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D029221:Faith Healing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D012648:Self Care