Social support enactments on social media during the first 6 months of young adult cancer caregiving

Purpose: To explore how family/friend young adult cancer caregivers (YACC) used social media for social support in a cross-sectional retrospective mixed-methods study.

Methods: Eligible YACC were recruited online and in-person from September 2017 to June 2018, were 18-39 years, used social media weekly, and cared for an adult cancer patient diagnosed 6 months-5 years prior (N = 34). Social media posts were randomly sampled, and content analyzed for five types of social support (emotional, informational, validation, companionship, instrumental). Generalized linear models were fit to estimate changes in the prevalence of social support in posts over the 6-month period following diagnosis.

Results: The investigators analyzed N = 2090 social media posts, 26.9% made by YACC, and 73.1% by followers; 36.8% were cancer-related. The most common type of social support for YACC on social media was emotional (63.3%), followed by informational (27.7%), validation (15.3%), companionship (5.7%), and instrumental (1.3%). When controlling for platform (e.g., Instagram), the odds of posts containing emotional support decreased significantly over the first 6 months of caregiving (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.90, 95%CI 0.85-0.94), while informational (aOR: 1.15, 95%CI 1.09-1.21) and companionship (aOR: 1.12, 95%CI 1.02-1.24) support increased.

Conclusions: YACC and their followers share emotional and informational support on social media. Next steps should determine how social media may improve (e.g., social support) or hinder (e.g., misinformation) cancer caregiving throughout survivorship.

Implications for cancer survivors: Caregivers and patients should be aware of possible fluctuations in social media support after diagnosis and the utility of using social media for different types of social support.