OBJECTIVE: This study was conducted to develop cancer patients' symptom management guideline, and to develop and test the utility of the web-based guideline service system.

METHODS: Based on the literature review, guidelines for symptom management for nausea/vomiting, fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, and oral mucositis were developed. A web-based cancer patients' symptom management system was developed on the basis of guideline developed in the first stage of the study. Forty-five oncology nurses were recruited and asked to evaluate and validate the system by rating level of satisfaction with function, content and effectiveness of the web-based service after they used the website for cancer patients care.

RESULTS: Regarding the function of the system around 50% of oncology nurses expressed satisfaction with the system. Regarding the content of the system, nurses expressed highest satisfaction with reliability of information(66.7%) and lowest satisfaction with sufficiency of information (37.7%). Regarding the effectiveness of the system in terms of knowledge enhancement, about 40% of nurses indicated that they satisfied with the system. In terms of usefulness of the system, 48.9% of nurses expressed their satisfaction with the system.

CONCLUSION: The result of this study has implications on future use of a web-based guideline for managing symptoms of cancer patients.