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Internet and social media use in cancer patients: association with distress and perceived benefits and limitations

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Abstract

Objective

Cancer patients may turn to social media (SM) to cope with distress. We investigated associations between distress and internet/SM use for cancer information/support.

Methods

Adult patients at a Canadian cancer centre completed a cross-sectional survey on sociodemographics, health status, use of cancer online resources and distress (EQ5D-5L). Statistical models adjusted for relevant variables.

Results

Of 376 participants, median age was 52 years, time since diagnosis was 1.63 years, 272 (74%) had post-secondary education and 192 (51%) were female. For cancer information/support, 276 (73%) used internet and 147 (39%) SM. Dose response relationships were observed between distress and cancer-related internet (p = 0.02), and SM use (p < 0.001). Respondents using internet/SM for cancer information/support reported greater internet confidence (internet OR = 4.0, 95% CI: 1.9–8.3; SM OR = 4.18, 95%, CI: 1.9–11.3), higher education (internet OR = 3.0, 95% CI: 1.7–5.2; SM OR = 2.21, 95% CI: 1.2–4.1) and were more likely female (internet OR = 2.6, 95% CI 1.5–4.6; SM OR = 2.1, 95% CI: 1.3–3.4). For SM for cancer information/support, more used SM > 30 min daily (OR = 3.4; 95% CI: 2.1–5.7), and were distressed (OR = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.0–2.7). SM benefits were to learn about cancer (93; 25%), distract from cancer (85; 23%) and connect with survivors (81; 22%). SM limitations were privacy (161; 43%), quality (90; 24%) and personal applicability (85; 23%). Females used SM more to connect with survivors than males (p = 0.001).

Conclusions

Greater internet confidence, higher education and being female were associated with cancer-related internet/SM use. Distressed cancer patients were also more likely to turn to SM. Privacy concerns may limit SM use for coping. Future research should determine how to optimize SM in caring for and connecting with patients and reduce cancer-related distress.

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Data, material and code availability

The data is not in a data repository; however, study material and analytic code are available upon request.

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Funding

This research was supported in part by the Alan B Brown Chair in Molecular Genomics, the Lusi Wong Family Fund, the Posluns Family Foundation and the ELLICSR Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship Program at the Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Geoffrey Liu and Abha A. Gupta are co-senior authors

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship, Department of Supportive Care, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Jacqueline L. Bender

  2. Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Jacqueline L. Bender

  3. Division of Medical Oncology and Hematology Department of Medicine Princess Margaret Cancer Centre , University Health Network and University of Toronto , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Katrina Hueniken, Lawson Eng, M. Catherine Brown, Shayan Kassirian, Ilana Geist, Karmugi Balaratnam, Mindy Liang, Chelsea B. Paulo, Arielle Geist, Pryangka Rao, Alexander Magony, Elliot C. Smith, Geoffrey Liu & Abha A. Gupta

  4. Department of Biostatistics , Centre University Health Network and University of Toronto , Princess Margaret Cancer, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Katrina Hueniken & Wei Xu

  5. Department of Pediatric Oncology , The Hospital for Sick Children , Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Abha A. Gupta

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  1. Jacqueline L. Bender
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Contributions

Jacqueline L. Bender, Lawson Eng, Katrina Hueniken, Laura Mitchell, Catherine M. Brown, Wei Xu, Geoffrey Liu and Abha A. Gupta contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Katrina Hueniken, Shayan Kassirian, Ilana Geist, Karmugi Balarantnam, Mindy Liang, Chelsea B. Paulo, Pryangka Rao, Alexander Magony and Elliott Smith. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by Jacqueline L. Bender, Katrina Hueniken, Lawson Eng, Catherine Brown, Wei Xu, Geoffrey Liu and Abha A Gupta. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jacqueline L. Bender and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Abha A. Gupta and Geoffrey Liu are co-senior authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jacqueline L. Bender.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All study procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution, the Government of Canada’s Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2-2018) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration. The study was approved by the University Health Network Research Ethics Board. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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The authors affirm that all individual participants provided informed consent for their data to be published in a journal article.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Bender, J.L., Hueniken, K., Eng, L. et al. Internet and social media use in cancer patients: association with distress and perceived benefits and limitations. Support Care Cancer 29, 5273–5281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06077-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06077-0

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