An Analysis of Online Health Counseling Content on a Website Administered by a Nursing College

Background : A large amount of health information is accessible through the Internet. It is necessary for private citizens to be able to understand this information so they can make sound health decisions. This study investigates the implementation of the Kango-Net ( "Nursing-Net" ) website, which administers nursing advice and health information to its users. Method : This study aimed to obtain suggestions regarding the health information required by website visitors and to examine consultation content available on Kango-Net's "Online health counseling" page. We collected notes posted on the online health counseling page regarding consultations for dilated cardiomyopathy and Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. We then categorized and qualitatively analyzed the notes. Initial analysis involved the extraction of the smallest units of meaning for each note ; the notes' contents were subsequently coded and classified. Findings : Forty-one notes written by 24 users and 136 notes written by 60 users were collected from Kango-Net's online health counseling pages for MRKH syndrome and dilated cardiomyopathy, respectively. The collected notes were posted over a period of approximately seven years, from April 26, 2006, to May 13, 2013. The extracted categories were very similar between the two diseases ; therefore, we combined them to come up with the following 7 categories of content for analysis : Disease Experiences, Current Thoughts or Feelings,, Feelings Upon First Learning About One's Illness, Information Availability, Consultations Concerning Therapeutic Methods, Messages, and Advice. Discussion : Users with these two diseases who visited Kango-Net's online health counseling page found concrete information concerning topics such as therapeutic methods, continuing with everyday life, and disease convalescence. Patients with diseases such as dilated cardiomyopathy and MRKH syndrome are more likely to communicate on the Web, and the information sharing on Kango-Net encourages them to fight against their illnesses. However, some improvements need to be made to the site to ensure that the Web exchanges become more active.