Online Support Seeking and Breast Cancer Patients: Changes in Support Seeking Behavior following Diagnosis and Transition off Cancer Therapy.

Transitions in breast cancer care are associated with significant increases in stress and anxiety, and this stress can negatively impact mental and physical health. Social support has been shown to alleviate such distress, but social support is accessed through existing support networks is unclear. Our study examines changes in social media use following breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, using hand-coded longitudinal data from 30 breast cancer survivors' Facebook pages for the 6 months surrounding cancer diagnosis and for the 6 months surrounding transition off cancer therapy.

Online social support among breast cancer patients: longitudinal changes to Facebook use following breast cancer diagnosis and transition off therapy.

Purpose: Active social engagement, both on and offline, is widely recognized as an important buffer against the negative effects of cancer-related stress. Nevertheless, studies show that social stigma can lead to a decrease in available social support following cancer diagnosis. This study examines whether Facebook friends provide continuous, health-promoting social support to breast cancer patients following transitions in care.