Evaluation of a Systematic Design for a Virtual Patient Community

Virtual Communities (VCs) offer ubiquitous access to information and exchange possibilities for people in similar situations. This is especially valuable for patients with chronic / life-threatening diseases as they have strong needs for information and interaction with peers. It is seldom considered possible to create VCs systematically. Grounded on previous findings, systematic design of the VC krebsgemeinschaft.de (a VC for cancer patients in the German speaking internet) this article describes the evaluation of the design elements and factors which contributed to the VCs success by assessing user acceptance and usage of the site. Additionally, the existence of trust (a constituent element of working VCs) in krebsgemeinschaft.de is addressed. Based on these criteria we verify empirically the chosen design components and generate insights as to the systematic development and operation of VCs in general and for VCs for patients in the German healthcare system in particular.