Cancer Virtual Communities in the Era of Personalized Medicine

Abstract

Cancer is the most common chronic disease worldwide. Cancer patients report significant unmet supportive care needs. Peer support groups show great promise in meeting cancer patients' supportive care needs, and are considered an important complement to the formal health care system. Virtual communities offer a convenient way for cancer patients to collaborative meet many of their supportive care needs in a timely way. This chapter will present current evidence on: the scope and characteristics of virtual communities for cancer patients; prevalence and predictors of use and reasons for non-use; the nature and function of supportive exchanges in cancer virtual communities, including their limitations; and the potential effects, both positive and negative, of participating in cancer virtual communities on health outcomes. Grounded in social support, technology adoption and health behavior theory, this chapter will offer a multi-theory framework for better understanding for how cancer virtual communities work and under what conditions.