The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based breast cancer educational program which consists of special features such as flash animations and online counseling as well as 7 different categories of information on breast cancer. The effectiveness of the program was analyzed in terms of its function and content. A total of 147 women with breast cancer who visited the website for at least 30 minutes and a minimum of 3 visits, participated in the survey.In the satisfaction evaluation of web-based educational program, usefulness of information, system efficiency, adequacy of information and convenience of use all received positive evaluation and showed even distribution of 49.14 (+/-6.05) points out of 64 points total. In the usefulness evaluation, the subcategories had following scores from the highest to the lowest; understanding of breast cancer was 3.34 (+/-0.51), life after treatment (3.21+/-0.58), early detection and examination (3.20+/-0.60), chemotherapy and hormonal therapy (3.18+/-0.55), related factors and prevention (3.16+/-0.59), treatments (3.13+/-0.53), and diagnosis (3.02+/-0.56). Factors affecting the satisfaction of the program were age, religion, income, stage of disease at diagnosis, source of health information, duration of Internet usage, and whether the patient performs breast self-examination. Factors that affect the usefulness of the program were religion, period since diagnosis, source of health information, frequency of Internet usage, recurrence of breast cancer, and family history.Although the program was evaluated as somewhat useful and satisfactory, it should be improved upon by providing in-depth and cutting edge breast health information especially for women from a higher educational and income background.
Keywords: Breast neoplasms; counseling; health education; internet; online systems..