Weissenberger C, Jonassen S, Beranek-Chiu J, Neumann M, Müller D, Bartelt S, Schulz S, Mönting J S, Henne K, Gitsch G, Witucki G
Division of Radiotherapy, University Hospital of Freiburg, Hugstetter Strasse 55, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Br J Cancer. 2004 Oct 18;91(8):1482-7. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6602168.
Individual belief and knowledge about cancer were shown to influence coping and compliance of patients. Supposing that the Internet information both has impact on patients and reflects patients' information needs, breast cancer web sites in English and German language were evaluated to assess the information quality and were compared with each other to identify intercultural differences. Search engines returned 10 616 hits related to breast cancer. Of these, 4590 relevant hits were analysed. In all, 1888 web pages belonged to 132 English-language web sites and 2702 to 65 German-language web sites. Results showed that palliative therapy (4.5 vs 16.7%; P=0.004), alternative medicine (18.2 vs 46.2%; P<0.001), and disease-related information (prognosis, cancer aftercare, self-help groups, and epidemiology) were significantly more often found on German-language web sites. Therapy-related information (including the side effects of therapy and new studies) was significantly more often given by English-language web sites: for example, details about surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, immune therapy, and stem cell transplantation. In conclusion, our results have implications for patient education by physicians and may help to improve patient support by tailoring information, considering the weak points in information provision by web sites and intercultural differences in patient needs.
研究表明，个体对癌症的信念和认知会影响患者的应对方式和依从性。假设互联网信息既会对患者产生影响，又能反映患者的信息需求，我们对英文和德文的乳腺癌网站进行了评估，以评定信息质量，并相互比较以找出文化差异。搜索引擎返回了10616条与乳腺癌相关的结果。其中，对4590条相关结果进行了分析。总共，1888个网页属于132个英文网站，2702个网页属于65个德文网站。结果显示，姑息治疗（4.5%对16.7%；P=0.004）、替代医学（18.2%对46.2%；P<0.001）以及疾病相关信息（预后、癌症后续护理、自助组织和流行病学）在德文网站上出现的频率显著更高。与治疗相关的信息（包括治疗副作用和新研究）在英文网站上出现的频率显著更高：例如，关于手术、化疗、放疗、激素治疗、免疫治疗和干细胞移植的详细信息。总之，我们的研究结果对医生开展患者教育具有启示意义，并且通过考虑网站信息提供的薄弱环节以及患者需求的文化差异来量身定制信息，可能有助于改善对患者的支持。
