Abstract

The Internet is a large network of computers linked all over the world that provides instant access to the information stored within them. Since the use of the Internet is exponentially growing, more and more physicians and patients will gain access to oncological information available in this large global computer network. To study the use of a Cancer Information Service in the Internet by our Portuguese speaking population, we designed a home page (http://www2.netpoint.com.br/abcbr) that offers information about chemotherapy, several links to other cancer information sites and also allows the user to ask his own questions about cancer. In order to learn the characteristics of our visitors, we also asked them to fill out an online questionnaire. In the first six months of existence of our service, we had an average of 37 visits to our home page and a total of 25 questionnaires filled out. Our visitors have several characteristics that are significantly different than the regular Brazilian users of the Internet such us higher income, age, educational level and proposition of women in our sample. We conclude that the low utilization of our service is probably due to the overall still small use of the Internet in our country as well as a lower proposition those who match the profile our visitor among the current Brazilian users of the Internet.

Key words: information on cancer; cancer at the Internet