Objective: Relatives of cancer patients often play a crucial role in care, while their own needs generally receive scant attention. We investigate those topics on which relatives share information online.
Methods: We coded user-generated content written by 185 relatives on a major Dutch cancer site (kanker.nl), into three main categories: 'Disease', 'Well-being' and 'Other subjects'. In addition, we analysed five websites (from five countries) for which content they provide that is relevant for relatives.
Results: Our analysis showed that across cancer types, relatives share online information and emotions. Quantitative analysis showed that they mainly write about topics related to their own well-being (blog posters: 45% of the posts and group posters 64%). Blog posters found the disease-related topics more important than the group posters (45% and 29%).
Conclusions: This study has shown that relatives share different kinds of user-generatedcontent related to their own situation. This could be a valuable resource for further research into the needs of relatives, and a very useful source for identification of emotional and informational topics.
Practice implications: It is crucial that relatives are enabled to occupy their own space in the disease-and-treatment process appropriate to their needs and to help avoid caregiver burden.
Keywords: Cancer patients; Content analysis; Relatives; User-generated content.
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