Abstract
Our pilot study is created to explore various effects of social media therapy on patients living with cancer. The study employs a qualitative research design to seek and understand how social media benefits people with cancer. The main purpose of the study is to regulate how social media-based treatment affects various aspects of patient well-being. The various aspects of patient well-being include psychological distress, social support, and overall quality of life, among other elements of their well-being. The convenience sample of the pilot study comprises fifty cancer patients recruited from oncology clinics. The sample will be the most convenient since the study will use the post-test design and pre-test. The mode of data collection used to gather data during the survey is the standardized questionnaires. The study will apply descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze results collected from different areas during the research. The results obtained from the pilot study will shed a significant spotlight on the viability and possible effectiveness of social media therapy as an additional treatment for cancer patients. The study is important because it helps provide information on the effectiveness of social media therapy hence clarifying the need to implement social media therapy in improving the psychological health and coping mechanism of cancer patients.
Introduction
For nearly everyone, receiving a cancer diagnosis can cause severe turbulence in their lives due to the associated fear and uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis might put one’s overall sense of safety and organization in life at risk. Even though most cancers are curable, many people nonetheless harbor internalized anxieties that all cancers signify misery, agony, and demise. According to studies, no illness has experienced the same level of negative stigma as cancer. These anxieties may influence a person’s response to receiving a new cancer diagnosis. People who have cancer, regardless of the style, must deal with the possibility that it will progress in an unanticipated way, leaving them apprehensive about what lies ahead. A cancer diagnosis is associated with a wide range of complicated problems, which include managing the disease and its treatment’s bodily symptoms, searching for consoling philosophical, spiritual, or religious beliefs or ideals that give life and death meaning, as well as the existential aspect of the condition. Even though traditional approaches are still effective as a way of treating cancer, there is the introduction of social media platforms that still offer the best therapeutic interventions to deal with cancer.
Social media therapy is a form of expressive therapy that uses user-generated content creation and sharing to learn and relate to people. Social media therapy combines the expressive therapy facets of talk, art, writing, and drama therapy and applies them online. Asynchronous or synchronous communication occurs in social media therapy by sharing text, audio, or visual content. The digital material is made available online for use as treatment. The social cognitive theory will guide our study. However, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (SLT) was a forerunner of the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) during the 1960s (Ajiboye, 2021). The focus on societal impact and inside and outside social support makes SCT extraordinary. SCT considers the different ways individuals learn and hold conduct, notwithstanding the social context in which that conduct is shown (Wayne W. LaMorte, 2022). The concept considers a person’s previous encounters, which impact the probability of conduct movement. These related involvements influence fortifications, hopes, and assumptions, all impacting whether an individual would participate in a specific action and the inspirations driving it. Within the framework of social media therapy, the social cognitive theory posits that cancer patients’ various applications of online platforms may significantly impact cognitive functioning, beliefs about their efficacy, and coping mechanisms (Islam et al., 2023). These interfere with their psychological health and overall quality of life. Another nursing theory that can be utilized in this study is the self-care deficit theory by Dorothea Orem because the study focuses on how cancer patients can perform self-care activities and maintain optimum psychological well-being (Tanaka, 2022). The theory can help us understand how cancer patients seek and adapt to self-care activities, seek psychological support from various social media platforms, and manage challenges within the framework of self-care deficits and interventions.
This pilot project is focused on investigating the impact of social media treatment on the mental distress, social support, and overall quality of life of cancer patients. Participation in social media treatment is the independent variable; quality of life, social support, and psychological distress are the dependent factors. The research will mainly focus on answering the PICOT question which is the root of this pilot study. Consequently, the following research study is important because it helps address the complex psychological needs of cancer patients through the provision of social support and improving the quality of life. The study will provide important insight into the mechanism that is involved in social support and its effects in meeting the specific needs of patients such as mental health support, medical adherence, and coping strategies.
Research questions and hypothesis
The research question: in patients with cancer (P), how does social media therapy (I) versus standard care(C) influence the patient’s psychological distress, quality of life, and social support (0) over six weeks (T)?
Hypotheses: The quality of life will be higher for the people living with cancer after applications of various interventions associated with social media therapy as compared to those obtaining conventional care.
When people living with cancer engage in various social media therapy interventions, they usually experience reduced psychological distress as compared to patients who receive standard care.
In comparison, patients receiving standard care with cancer patients who have engaged in social media therapy patients who have engaged in various social media therapies usually experienced higher levels of social support.
Review of Related Literature
According to Claire Han et al. (2018) article “Interventions Using Social Media for Cancer Prevention and Management (Han et al., 2018), social media therapy is effective in promoting overall health and supports self-management of the patient. The study by Han et at 2018 uses a systematic search on various health platforms such as PubMed and Medline to identify the surveys used and interventions using social media therapy. The article utilizes seven randomized controlled trials and all types of cancers were considered with mostly white participants in the study (Han et al., 2018). Social media therapy was the major component of the study and the study, results obtained showed effective prevention and management of cancer especially on the psychological and emotional well-being of patients (Han et al., 2018). Limitations of this study include a dearth of studies that had rigorous study methods. The study also had the majority of white participants limiting generalization of the study findings to other ethnic groups.
In another research by Poudel et al. (2023), when compared to their control equivalents, young and middle-aged adult cancer patients and survivors who receive social integration interventions that use technology-based platforms report better PROs, broader knowledge and access to cancer survivorship resources, and enhanced social and emotional support(Poudel et al., 2023). The results of the study showed that the integration of both technical and non-technical interventions through social media can help improve the overall health outcome and coping mechanism of cancer patients (Poudel et al., 2023). The limitation of this study is that it only includes studies that focus on young and middle-aged cancer patients which limits the generalization of the research article.
According to Biancovilli et al., 2021, female breast cancer was most diagnosed in 2020 hence the need for an explorative qualitative study to analyze the effectiveness of social media in managing patients. According to the author, content such as real-life stories can help make a difference in the patient’s life with special consideration and warning on misinformation (Biancovilli et al., 2021). The article utilizes an online tool called Buzzsumo which helps monitor the web and other social media platforms for popular content with breast cancer being the center of focus (Biancovilli et al., 2021). One limitation of the study is that it only sampled online stories and content provided in English which limits the generalization of the research finding to all cultural settings.
The following study was also based on the article by Wang et al., 2020 which systematically reviewed the evidence available on the benefits of using internet-based interventions to provide psychoeducational interventions to cancer patients. The article utilizes systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the available information in various social media platforms by searching various databases such as Medline and Embase (Wang et al., 2020). The result of the study showed that social media-based interventions were effective in reducing stress levels among cancer patients (Wang et al., 2020). It also showed that the intervention helps reduce anxiety, and fatigue hence improving the overall health outcome and quality of life of cancer patients.
Another research article that was reviewed in this study is an article by Larzard et al., 2021 titled “Using Social Media for Peer-to-Peer Cancer Support: Interviews with Young Adults with Cancer”. The article focuses on the effectiveness of web-based social support to help meet the unique and special social support needs of cancer patients (Larzard et al., 2021). The study utilizes semi-structured interviews aged 18-39 receiving or having completed cancer treatment. According to the author, most participants use general audience platforms such as Facebook to seek social support and help while navigating life with cancer (Larzard et al., 2021). The study concludes that young people can use social media to connect and share with other peers who have the same problem hence helping them in coping with the condition. The study is only limited to young adults aged 18-39 and does not take into consideration young and elderly cancer patients which limits the generalization of the study.
Even though these research findings seem promising, further research should be conducted to explore various specific underlying mechanisms about the effects of social media therapy on cancer patient’s well-being (Poudel et al. (2023). Multiple challenges, such as a small sample size, were identified during the research. This highlights the need to carry out rigorous pilot investigations to develop the design of larger-scale trials.
Methods
Subjects:This pilot study will involve a convenient sample of fifty cancer patients undertaking treatments in oncology clinics.
The research designs: To make a comparison between the outcomes of cancer patients who are receiving social media therapy and the cancer patients who are receiving standard care, the research will apply the post-test designs and pre-tests. To place participants into their respective control groups, that is, standard care or social media therapy, there will be random assignments.
The data collection method: Since surveys and questionnaires are the easiest and most effective ways of collecting data in quantitative research, these two standardized methods will be used to gather data in this experiment (Aithal & Aithal, 2020). The questionnaires will be administered at baseline pre-test and six weeks later for a pre-test. The questionnaire method will comprise various questions that will be used to assess the patient’s social support, psychological stress, and quality of care. The surveys will gather demographic information about the patient’s gender, treatment status, name, birthdate, residence, phone number, email address, gender, and race.
Psychological distresses the emotional suffering or discomfort that is mostly experienced by individuals with either external or internal stressors which in this case is cancer. It is mostly characterized by various negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, hopelessness, and depression. Use of scales such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) can be used to assess the level of anxiety and depression among cancer patients receiving social media therapy and compare the results to those of patients receiving standardized care. Quality of life encompasses the overall well-being of a patient together with the satisfaction he/she receives in various aspects such as psychological well-being, social relationships, and other environmental factors. A tool that can be used to assess the quality of life of participants is the WHO Quality Of Life (WHOQOL) questionnaire which will help measure aspects such as social relationships, psychological well-being, and overall health outcome.
Social support is the encouragement, assistance, encouragement, and resources such as family, and the community that provides emotional assistance, and guidance and hence assist the patient cope with the chronic condition. A tool that can be used to assess and evaluate the perceived social support from social media is the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ). These tools will be implemented before and after social media therapy intervention to assess the changes in psychological distress, quality of life, and social support. A paired sample T-test will be used in the study for statistical; analysis to compare the average scores on the measures of psychological distress, quality of life, and coping mechanism before and after social media therapy within the same group of patients under study. This tool will be used to evaluate the statistical changes before and after intervention with social media therapy on cancer patients.
The Procedure of the Study
The procedure will involve the following steps. The first step is the recruitment process. In the recruitment process, cancer patients in various oncology clinics will be educated and persuaded to engage in the study. The second step of the procedure will be informed consent. Before enrollment in the study, participants will give written informed consent. The third step will be baseline assessment, requiring the patients to complete baseline questionnaires. The fourth step is intervention, which will require the intervention team to get access to the online platform. The fifth step is the follow-up assessment, where the involved participants will be required to submit the post-test questionnaires after the duration of the six weeks. Finally, the data analysis step will be analyzed based on the results.
Limitations
The pilot research has numerous limitations. A small sample size is one of them. Short duration is also another limitation since the follow-up is after six weeks. This might not be enough to capture the long-term effects of social media therapy. The last limitation is the lack of binding force between the researchers and participation due to the nature of the intervention.
References
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