Finding resources

Finding cancer information

Cancer Voices SA (CVSA) aims to “ensure patients and supporters are receiving the best possible information…”

We all start the cancer journey with different levels of basic knowledge and understanding. However, when first diagnosed, patients or their supporters will be challenged by the sudden need for information about their particular type of cancer.

Where to begin!
Start by calling The Cancer Council Helpline 13 11 20.   Experienced cancer nurses or trained staff can provide information straight away by phone, and brochures can be posted out to you.

Search for information on the internet.
It may be helpful to begin by searching through our website links which are intended to provide a useful starting point of evidence based and reliable resources from sites in Australia and overseas.  Be aware that there may be differences in treatment names and drug availability if listed on an overseas website.

Tips to access quality information
Not all the information you will find on the internet is accurate.  A recent study of cancer websites “urged patients to be skeptical of the information they find online and not to take action without talking to a physician “

A few questions to always keep in mind when viewing any website are:

  • Who owns the website? Does it belong to a credible organisation, and is there potential ‘conflict of interest’ to sell products or services?
  • Who wrote the material? Are the authors identified, along with their authority to address the subject? Is there clear disclosure of the authors interest, purpose or mandate?
  • Is the information evidence-based, unbiased and reliable?
  • Are sources of the information identified?
  • Is the information up-to-date?

Visit more than one website and compare what you find. In general, information is more trustworthy when you find the same type of information on more than one website.
Advice to judge the quality and reliability of website information can be found at the US National Cancer Institute website: “How To Evaluate Health Information on the Internet”.

To improve your ‘web search skills’ you might find this online ‘information search’ tutorial quite useful: Internet Medic – which is a free online tutorial produced by Organising Medical Networked Information (OMNI) in the UK.

Find articles in the medical journals Find articles in the medical journals using   PubMed - a bibliographic search initiative of the US National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health. There is PubMed Online Training at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/disted/pubmed.html

It is often frustrating to find articles that are ‘subscription access only’, but you can limit your search to journals with free full text articles. In PubMed, click on the ‘Limits’ tab and check the ‘Links to free full text’ before you perform your search. Alternatively, find links for these Online Free Journal Collections.