Online cancer support: a pilot study to implement and evaluate a support blog at ARC Cancer Support House (Cork)

Abstract

This study is a Community Action Research Links (CARL) project between UCC Social Work Department and Cork ARC Cancer Support House. The study explores the feasibility of Cork ARC Cancer Support House offering an online Support Blog. A participatory research approach was adopted. An Initial Survey was carried out to discover if a Support Blog would be a support service people would use and what helpful features it should contain. A Support Blog was then piloted for 2 months. Following this, a Final Survey was completed to gauge if users found the Support Blog helpful and in what way. This project presents the findings of both Surveys and the experiences of the Cork ARC team from piloting the Blog. The project concluded that it would be feasible for Cork ARC to offer a support Blog depending on a number of conditions that would need to be considered for the support to be offered in a long-term capacity. These are highlighted in the recommendations of the study.