Patient Preferences for Online Person-Person Support

The Internet not only provides health information through ‘Web pages’ such as BUPA and Cancerbackup, but also offers person-person support through social networks, message boards, chat rooms, and virtual worlds. The wealth of Internet person-person support methods may benefit patients, but may be confusing. For example, some online methods offer more anonymity, some are synchronous (i.e. communication in real time), while yet others are asynchronous. Some rely on professional input, while others offer only peer-peer communication. Preference for a particular support method may vary by patient characteristics such as condition (e.g. people with depression may prefer anonymity, pregnant women may be less concerned about it), age (e.g. older people may prefer asynchronous methods that give more time to think), or stage of disease (e.g. people just diagnosed may seek professional support but longer term may prefer peer support).