RESEARCH General Health

HEALTH
Web-based information on managing prostate cancer needed

Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

2/1/03

Photo by Bill Wiegand Community health professor Janet Reis is the co-athor of "An e-Learning Caregiving Program for Prostate Cancer Patients and Family Members," a study funded by the National Cancer Institute through the National Institutes of Health.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With more and more households reporting access to home computers and Internet connections, activities such as purchasing products, tracing family histories and planning vacations online have become commonplace. Janet Reis hopes one segment of the public – prostate cancer patients and their caregivers – will add another activity to that list: building skills to more effectively manage the disease.

Reis, a professor of community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a co-author of "An e-Learning Caregiving Program for Prostate Cancer Patients and Family Members," a study funded by the National Cancer Institute through the National Institutes of Health. A report on the study, co-authored by Brendan McGinty, the president of Leo Media Inc., Urbana, Ill., and Sandi Jones, vice president of business and strategic services at Urbana’s Provena Covenant Medical Center, appears in the February issue of the Journal of Medical Systems. The authors urge development of an information delivery, training and support system combining Web-based resources and a CD-ROM.

"To better understand how prostate cancer patients and family members think about caregiving, we conducted a mail survey of 187 diagnosed individuals," Reis said, "inquiring about how well they feel prepared to take care of health concerns related to prostate cancer, and what they expect would happen if they took care of these concerns." Forty-five patients responded; all shared a non-terminal-stage diagnosis and had received radiation or surgical treatment at Provena Covenant’s Cancer Center. Most were white, with the average age of 68. Respondents also included 40 family members.

Patients and caregivers indicated varying levels of agreement about the importance of seven conditions associated with prostate cancer – from fatigue to incontinence and sexual functioning. Both groups were polled about their sense of preparedness with respect to post-hospital follow-up care as well. "Thirty to 44 percent of patients felt unprepared or very unprepared across the caregiving functions," Reis reported.

"The least problematic caregiving function was working and communicating with family members about the cancer (18 percent). The most problematic were watching for symptoms and knowing what the symptoms might mean (39 percent)."

Reis said the finding that most surprised her was one that confirmed her suspicion that an e-learning-based program could fill a gaping void that exists in post-hospital, home-caregiving. Forty-seven percent of patients surveyed indicated they would be interested in using such a program themselves, and 31 percent believed their family members would benefit from it.

Testing of a prototype program began at Provena Covenant’s Cancer Center in January. If that test is successful, Reis hopes a program can be marketed soon to medical specialists, cancer treatment centers, primary care providers and hospice/bereavement units.