Content and Quality of Online Information on Womens‘ Breast Cancer

Abstract

This thesis examines online information on the topic of women’s breast cancer according to their content and quality and puts them in relation to the need of patients on valid, reliable and understandable information, especially, when they are confronting a severe disease. The reason for conducting this thesis is that in times of digitalisation, the search for information via the internet is more common than ever and patients are confronted with a flood of online information on health-related topics. Research and communication on health information now occurs primarily via internet and therefore it can be considered crucial that the information that patients find is of high quality and can function as a basis for an exchange with the practitioners and as an information basis for the further course of treatment. The aim of this work is to investigate which information interested persons, and above all patients, can find on the internet and how reliable, valid, and comprehensible this information is. In order to investigate this topic, the medically relevant foundations and the theoretical foundations of health communication were first presented. Subsequently, an analysis was carried out in which a relevant search term which was determined, and its resulting target pages were examined and evaluated using a quality checklist. The research approach of this thesis can therefore be described as explorative. The results of this thesis provide an insight into the results of the online search on breast cancer in women and its content and quality and show to what extent relevant information is presented to users and patients. With this in mind, this thesis could be interesting for health scientists, patients, and other stakeholders in the field of health communication.