A Digital Cancer Ecosystem to Deliver Health and Psychosocial Education as Preventive Intervention.
Laura Ciria-SuarezLaura CostasAida Flix-ValleSerra-Blasco MJoan Carles MedinaCristian OchoaPublished in: Cancers (2022)
Health education and psychosocial interventions prevent emotional distress, and the latter has been shown to have an impact on survival. In turn, digital health education interventions may help promote equity by reaching a higher number of cancer patients, both because they avoid journeys to the hospital, by and having a better efficiency. A total of 234 women recently diagnosed with breast cancer in a comprehensive cancer center used the digital ecosystem ICOnnecta't from March 2019 to March 2021. ICOnnecta't consists of four care levels, provided to patients according to their level of distress. The second level of this intervention consists of an educational campus, which was analyzed to track users' interests and their information-seeking behavior. Overall, 99 out of 234 women (42.3%) used the educational campus. There were no significant differences in sociodemographic and clinical variables between the campus users and non-users. Among users, the median number of resources utilized per user was four (interquartile range: 2-9). Emotional and medical resources were the contents most frequently viewed and the audiovisual format the most consulted ( p < 0.01). Resources were used mainly within the first three months from enrolment. Users who were guided to visit the virtual campus were more active than spontaneous users. Offering an early holistic health educational platform inside a digital cancer ecosystem, with health professionals involved, can reach more patients, promoting equity in the access of cancer information and prevention, from the very beginning of the disease.
Keyphrases
- healthcare
- papillary thyroid
- mental health
- public health
- end stage renal disease
- health information
- squamous cell
- randomized controlled trial
- quality improvement
- ejection fraction
- human health
- climate change
- chronic kidney disease
- newly diagnosed
- peritoneal dialysis
- prognostic factors
- health promotion
- childhood cancer
- polycystic ovary syndrome
- adipose tissue
- pregnant women
- lymph node metastasis
- health insurance
- insulin resistance
- quantum dots
- breast cancer risk
- patient reported