Coding and Evaluating Facilitator Posts for an Online Cancer Survivor Workshop

Abstract

One-hundred and forty-five people attended six online cancer survivor workshops. Each workshop was monitored by two facilitators, who generated a total of 1,537 online posts. The authors developed a scheme for coding facilitator posts, combining grounded codes with categories developed by Spiegel and Classen for coding therapist responses in cancer support groups. Participants received a mean of 10.6 facilitator posts. Improvement in two health outcomes (practice of mental relaxation and illness intrusiveness) were significantly correlated with supportive posts and total number of posts. The coding scheme was easily applied and appears reliable. The data suggests that more facilitation is better.

KEYWORDS:

• facilitation
• cancer survivors
• internet
• patient education
• qualitative research

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Amgen Foundation and utilizes data collected as part of a project funded by Department of Defense project number W81XWH-06-2-0042, and the Stanford Cancer Institute. Erin Bantum was a principal investigator on the Cancer Thriving and Surviving study. Sally Weinstein and Vicky Brey assisted in the coding of facilitator posts. Angela Devlin and Eileen Bradley assisted with data collection for the Cancer Survivors Workshop questionnaire. There were no conflicts of interest.