How people trust the internet and seek health information online when experiencing and interpreting potential cancer symptoms is not well understood. We interviewed 27 women who had recently experienced at least one potential breast cancer symptom, and explored their symptom experience, help-seeking strategies, and whether they consulted the internet in relation to their symptoms. We conducted a thematic analysis and constructed a typology of attitudes towards, and experiences of, consulting the internet about the symptoms: i) confident; ii) neutral; iii) hesitant; and iv) avoidant. ‘Hesitant’ and ‘avoidant’ participants rarely mentioned cancer explicitly, doubted being able to interpret the information found online, and expressed concerns over finding ‘scaremongering’ information or making incorrect self-diagnosis. The ‘avoiders’ and the ‘hesitant’ participants perceived online information-seeking as being inherently risky, partly because online health content is likely to be inaccurate or exaggerated, and partly because the process of lay interpretation is likely to be flawed by lack of medical expertise. The findings suggest that not all women experiencing potential breast cancer symptoms seek health information online spontaneously or trust the internet as a legitimate source of health information. The women who did engage in online information seeking, particularly those with lower education, felt unsure about how to appraise online health sources to interpret their symptoms.

人们在体验和解释潜在的癌症症状时如何信任互联网并在线寻求健康信息。我们采访了27位最近至少经历过一种潜在乳腺癌症状的妇女，并探讨了她们的症状经历，寻求帮助的策略以及是否就症状与互联网进行了联系。我们进行了主题分析，并构建了关于症状征询互联网的态度和经验的类型学：i）自信；ii）中立；iii）犹豫不决；iv）回避。“犹豫”和“回避”的参与者很少明确提及癌症，怀疑是否能够解释在线发现的信息，并对寻找“具有讽刺意味的”信息或进行不正确的自我诊断表示担忧。“回避者”和“犹豫不决”的参与者认为，寻求在线信息具有固有的风险，部分原因是在线健康内容可能不准确或被夸大，部分原因是由于缺乏医疗服务，外行口译过程可能存在缺陷专业知识。研究结果表明，并非所有有潜在乳腺癌症状的妇女都自发地在网上寻求健康信息或相信互联网是健康信息的合法来源。确实从事在线信息搜索的女性，尤其是那些受过较低教育的女性，