The Swiss Cancer Leagues Use of Online Chat

as part of their extended counseling services

The Cancerline chat was an initiative of the Swiss Cancer League’s telephone support team aimed particularly at children and young adults. However, when the team started with online counselling, they quickly realised that adults were also using Cancerline to obtain advice.

That was six years ago. Since then, the popularity of the online chat has steadily grown. In 2014, the team started a second channel, specifically for adults. Over the past two years, live chat consultations have increased by over 435 percent, from 65 consultations in 2015, to 348 in 2017.

Chat used mainly by affected persons and their loved ones.

73 percent of all inquiries the cancer phone team receives through Cancerline are from women and girls, and 27 percent from men and boys. This is approximately the same ratio as with the other communication channels the team is running, such as the cancer telephone line or email. Most of the people using the chat are adults; only just over a fifth are children and young adults.

As evaluation of user data has shown, Cancerline is now an important part of Swiss Cancer Leagues counselling service, especially for cancer patients and their loved ones, who account for more than 80 percent of chat use, compared with just 55 percent across all communication channels (telephone, chat, email, internet forum and Skype).

A wide range of topics

The main topics of chat discussion across all groups of users are resource-oriented disease management, communication, mourning, dying and decision-making. Cancer patients and their families therefore use the chat mainly as a channel for obtaining advice and discussing psychosocial and emotional issues within the context of coping with the disease. It clearly meets this strong need for support.

Nevertheless, support via chat needs space and time. A chat session can last up to an hour. It also requires the counselors to listen differently. While the voice and tone of voice of the person seeking advice on the telephone can reveal much about their state of mind, this information is not available to online counselors.

Chat counselling often means trying to help people finding their own, individual solution and has more in common with coaching than with conventional counselling.

User anonymity protected

Another important factor is data protection. The Cancerline team stores chat logs and uses them for feedback and supervision purposes. However, in order to protect the privacy of users, no personal data or IP addresses are collected. Unlike other chat providers, no email address is required to register with Cancerline. You only need to select a nickname to talk to the counsellors. This provides even greater anonymity for the users.

In conclusion, it appears that real-time online counselling appeals mostly to people looking for a low-threshold service, perhaps because they simply need immediate crisis support or because it is easier for them to write than talk. People who use the chat may also not be able to access public transport easily, or the demands of work and family mean they are constrained by time. Last but not least, they prefer to obtain advice in a place they are already familiar with, the internet.

Contact details for further questions

Anna Zahno, Teamleader of the Swiss Cancer League’s telephone support; anna.zahno@krebsliga.ch