BACKGROUND
Understanding the impact of online cancer misinformation exposure on health outcomes is an area of growing concern, but few methods exist to objectively measure this exposure.
OBJECTIVE
The primary aim of this paper is to describe the acceptability and feasibility of using web-monitoring software to measure exposure to online cancer misinformation among cancer patients.
METHODS
We conducted a prospective pilot study from 10-2022 to 08-2023 wherein we adopted commercially available web-monitoring software to capture cancer-related web content. N=56 cancer patients completed a baseline survey and n=17 of these participants installed web-monitoring software on their personal computer for 30 days and completed a follow-up survey.
RESULTS
Participants (n=17) who installed web-monitoring software were 41.2% female and mean age 39 (SD: 15 years). Participants who completed the entire study found the use of web-monitoring software for research purposes to be highly acceptable. A complex installation process and the inability to install software on mobile devices negatively impacted implementation and caused an unknown number of participants to drop out after the baseline survey.
CONCLUSIONS
This pilot study demonstrates mixed acceptability for using web-monitoring software for research purposes among cancer patients and is a promising first step towards refining a tool to objectively capture cancer-related web content. Future studies should address implementation issues by exploring perceptions of web-monitoring among non-participants, considering alternative approaches, and expanding web-monitoring to include mobile devices.