Effects of Web based cancer support resources use on cancer affected people: A systematic literature review

DOI

10.2991/itmr.2014.4.4.4How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Systematic literature review, web based support recourses, cancer affected people

Abstract

To lay the groundwork for understanding the impact of web based support resources use on cancer affected people and devising plans for taking advantage of rapid development of internet technology for health purposes we conducted a systematic literature review. Studies published between 1993 and 2014 that presented empirical data addressing the effects of access to web based support resources on health and psychological aspects of cancer affected people were undertaken in this systematic review. We use the term cancer affected people to refer to people who have ever been diagnosed with cancer. We used Science Direct, Springer Link, IEEE Explore, Google Scholar, and expert consultation to select articles, thirty five (35) of which met the selection criteria. Results showed the use of web based support recourses by cancer affected people enabled them to archive health and psychological related benefits. The most common benefits were better confident, enhanced satisfaction and self-esteem, improvement in wellbeing and quality of life, increased optimism, reduction in depression, feeling empowered, become more active in their treatment and experiencing better health status. This review may motivate different health suppliers, such as health care organizations, to develop web based support systems into their care and post-care programs. This review revealed that previous studies extremely focused on websites, online forums, email listservs, bulletin boards and blogs as web based resource, and other web based support resources such as Social Networking Sites have been neglected in past research. This review will help investigators set priorities for future research on Social Network Sites as web based support resource for cancer affected people.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Seyedezahra Shadi Erfani
AU  - Babak Abedin
PY  - 2014
DA  - 2014/12/15
TI  - Effects of Web based cancer support resources use on cancer affected people: A systematic literature review
JO  - The International Technology Management Review
SP  - 201
EP  - 211
VL  - 4
IS  - 4
SN  - 1835-5269
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/itmr.2014.4.4.4
DO  - 10.2991/itmr.2014.4.4.4
ID  - Erfani2014
ER  -