Int J Thyroidol.  2020 May;13(1):30-36. 10.11106/ijt.2020.13.1.30.

Thyroid Cancer Patients’ Interests and Information Seeking Behavior: Focused on Online Community Analysis

• Park KA
• Kim S
• Lee YS
• Chang HS
• Park CS

• KMID: 2502257
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.11106/ijt.2020.13.1.30

Abstract

Background and Objectives
Many patients with thyroid cancer are participating in the online community. Thyroid cancer patients write and read a variety of posts in the online community, and there is a great deal of data generated in the digital environment. However, few studies have analyzed the online community of thyroid cancer patients. The purpose of this study is to analyze the online community to understand the interests and information seeking behavior of thyroid cancer patients.
Materials and Methods
Data were collected from August 2017 to September 2019 using statistics from an online community of thyroid cancer patients. The frequency analysis was performed by collecting the members’ gender, age, average usage time, time-of-day views, average monthly visits, device distribution, online community inflow query, query within online community, and content of a post with more than 1000 views per month.
Results
Analyzing the online community of thyroid cancer patients, women accounted for 80.4% of the total, and the age group of people in their 30s and 40s accounted for 77.5%. Online community subscribers averaged 0.7 visits a day using mobile, with the most frequent use time between 10pm and 12pm. Frequently used queries are medical staff names, surgery, recurrence and scar. Posts showed informational and emotional exchanges.
Conclusion
Patients with thyroid cancer have searched for a lot of information about surgery and recurrence. Analyzing the online community will help to understand the experience of thyroid cancer patients and contribute to the development of online community intervention.

Keyword

Thyroid cancer; Interests; Information; Online

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