Assessing Unmet Information Needs of Breast Cancer Survivors: Exploratory Study of Online Health Forums Using Text Classification and Retrieval.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Patient education materials given to breast cancer survivors may not be a good fit for their information needs. Needs may change over time, be forgotten, or be misreported, for a variety of reasons. An automated content analysis of survivors' postings to online health forums can identify expressed information needs over a span of time and be repeated regularly at low cost. Identifying these unmet needs can guide improvements to existing education materials and the creation of new resources.

Objective

The primary goals of this project are to assess the unmet information needs of breast cancer survivors from their own perspectives and to identify gaps between information needs and current education materials.

Methods

This approach employs computational method

SUBMITTER: McRoy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5974460 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature