Association of the Extent of Cancer Patients’ Internet Use with Social Support among Patients and Change in Patient-reported Treatment Outcomes during Inpatient Rehabilitation: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study. (Preprint)

Abstract

Given the increasing number of cancer survivors and rising survival rates, rehabilitation plays an increasingly important role. Social support among patients is an essential element of inpatient and day care rehabilitation. The internet can empower cancer patients to be more active health care consumers and facilitate information and supportive care needs. On the other hand, therapists suspect that high internet use during rehabilitation may severely limit social interactions between patients, thus interfering with the patients’ rehabilitation program and jeopardizing treatment success.

We hypothesized that the extent of cancer patients’ internet use would be negatively related to social support among patients during their clinical stay as well as fewer improvements in patient-reported treatment outcomes from the first to the last day of the clinical stay.

Cancer patients participated during their inpatient rehabilitation. Cross-sectional data, such as the extent of participants’ internet use and perceived social support among patients, were collected during the last week of the clinic stay. The treatment outcomes, i.e., participants’ levels of distress, fatigue and pain were collected on the first and last day of the clinic stay. We used multiple linear regression analysis to study the association between the extent of cancer patients’ internet use and social support among patients. We used linear mixed model analysis to study the association between the extent of cancer patients’ internet use and the change in patient-reported treatment outcomes.

Of the 323 participants, 279 participants (86.4%) reported that they use the internet. The extent of participants’ internet use during their clinical stay (t315=0.78, P=.43) was not significantly associated with the perceived social support among patients during their clinical stay. Additionally, the extent of participants’ internet use during their clinical stay was not associated with the change in participants’ levels of distress (F1, 299=0.12, P=.73), fatigue (F1, 299=0.19, P=.67), and pain (F1, 303=0.92, P=.34) from the first to the last day of the clinical stay.

The extent of cancer patients’ internet use during their clinical stay does not seem to be negatively associated with the perceived social support among patients or with the change in patients' levels of distress, fatigue or pain from the first to the last day of patients’ clinical stay.