The impact of an electronic health questionnaire on symptom management and behavior reporting for breast cancer survivors

Breast cancer (BC) patients experience multiple symptoms as a result of diagnosis and treatment. While surveillance for detecting cancer recurrence is fundamental to follow-up care, managing symptoms, and promoting health behaviors are equally important. UCSF has implemented a secure online health questionnaire enabling BC patients to provide updates of their health history and symptoms. We randomly selected a sample of stage I–III BC patients ( n = 106) who completed a questionnaire before a medical oncology visit between August 2010 and January 2011 and consented to have data used for research. We conducted a chart review calculating the number of symptoms reported in the questionnaire, the clinic note only, and both questionnaire and clinic note, excluding chronic symptoms addressed previously. Self-reported data on exercise and alcohol consumption was compared to documentation of these lifestyle factors in clinic notes. Patients reported significantly more symptoms using the online questionnaire (mean = 3.8, range 0–13) than were documented by the provider in clinic notes (mean = 1.8, range 0–7; p