title: [Not Available].
abstract: Having first emerged in the 1990s, online blogs had developed significantly by 2004, reaching an estimated 30 to 40 million in France. While they are particularly active in literary, technical and political fields, the authors of blogs are also active in the realm of healthcare. The object of this paper is to provide an assessment of roughly 2 to 3 per thousand of those personal blogs which focus on health and illness. The majority of these blogs, for the most part written by women, describe the experiences of patients and show how patients deal with the changes caused by their illness in their daily lives. While the main pathologies are presented in blogs, these still grant a significant place to the bearers of rare illnesses and diseases and to children. Construed as the voice of patients and of their entourage, blogs contribute to the relatively informal emergence of the involvement of patients in public healthcare.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Legros
mesh_terms: D057218:Blogging; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet