Abstracts

BLOG (Web Log) is a new internet media system characterized by a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts with multiple Web links. The author investigated whether a [apos]fiction novel[apos] on BLOG describing a girl undergoing epilepsy surgery can potentially facilitate familiarity to epilepsy surgery among the general internet users in Japan. The author also assessed whether BLOG can serve as a survey tool in psychosocial research., The author[apos]s BLOG (URL: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/eishi_asano_md_phd) was used to publish a serial novel and to conduct a survey among internet users. The serial novel was initiated on July 13, 2005 and ended on December 4, 2005, and consisted of 125 chapters with a number of illustrations. A survey designed to measure familiarity with epilepsy surgery was prospectively conducted using the BLOG. A single questionnaire was posted on the survey section of the BLOG on November 28, 2005. It was announced that the survey would be closed on December 4, 2005, regardless of the number of responders. None of the responders were rewarded for taking part in this survey. In addition, the number of daily public accesses to the BLOG and the Official Web Site of the Japan Epilepsy Society (JES) were measured during the survey period., The BLOG obtained about 80 - 500 daily public accesses without any external funding support, and the total number of accesses to the BLOG from July 13 to December 4, 2005 was 20,718. The mean of daily accesses during the survey period was 135 for the BLOG and 181 for the JES Web site. A total of 27 users responded to the questionnaire during the survey period. Sixteen responders indicated that this novel facilitated awareness of epilepsy surgery, and eight indicated that they have been already aware of epilepsy surgery even before reading the novel., A public outreach in epilepsy surgery may be possible using BLOG, but the magnitude of public outreach in this project has been quite small. Major advantages of BLOG as a tool for outreach and survey include a small cost and high speediness. Technical limitations of BLOG-based surveys include limited coverage, non-response bias, and incompatible hardware or software. A better outreach system may be required to increase the number of patients with uncontrolled seizures benefiting from epilepsy surgery.[figure1],