Information on cancer at the Internet: the first experience of the Oncology Department of the ABC Foundation School of Medicine

Abstract

The Internet is a large network of computers linked all over the world thatprovides instant access to the Information stored within them. Since the use of the Internet is exponentially growing, more and more physicians andpatients will gain access to oncological information available in this large global Computer network. To study the use of a Cancer Information Service in the Internet by our Portuguese speaking population, we designed a home page (http://www2.netpoint.com.br/abcbr) that offers information aboiit chemotherapy, several links to other cancer information sites and also allows the user to ask his own questions about câncer. In order to learn the characteristics of our visitors, we also asked them tofillout na online qiiestionnaire. In the first six inonths of existence of our Service, we had na average of37 visits per month to our home page and a total of25 qiiestionnaires filled out. Our visitors have several characteristics that are significantly different than the regular Brazilian users ofthe Internet, such us higher income, age, educational levei and proportion of women in our sample. We conclude that the low iitilization ofour Service is probably due to the overall still small use ofthe Internet in our country as well as a lower proportion of those who match the profile our visitor among the current Brazilian users of the Internet.