Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Cancer
Date Submitted: May 9, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: May 12, 2025 - Jul 7, 2025
Date Accepted: Aug 27, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Social Media-Based Cancer Education: Bibliometric and Thematic Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Traditional cancer patient education faces challenges related to timeliness, accessibility, and a personalized approach. Social media has emerged as a novel platform for delivering cancer-related educational content, garnering growing academic interest. However, a comprehensive assessment of the current research landscape in this domain is lacking.
Objective:
Aimed to identify research hotspots and trace the evolution of social media-based cancer patient education, and map the leading journals, institutions, and international collaboration networks in this field.
Methods:
A bibliometric and thematic analysis was conducted using tools such as VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, and CiteSpace to examine articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2011 to 2025. The analysis explored publication trends, author and institutional collaboration networks, keyword co-occurrence, factor analysis, thematic clusters, and the evolution of disciplinary keyword categories.
Results:
A total of 119 publications were retrieved, The Journal of Medical Internet Research was the most productive journal in this field, publishing 13 articles (10.9%). The University of Minnesota was the most productive institution, contributing 21 publications (17.6%). The United States accounted for the largest proportion of research output (56 publications, 47.1%), with five of the top ten institutions based in the country. The U.S. also led the international collaboration network. Keyword analysis identified key research hotspots, including platform-specific information dissemination, tailored educational interventions for diverse patient populations, efforts to enhance quality of life, and challenges related to health misinformation. Thematic evolution demonstrated a shift from basic information-seeking behaviors to broader topics such as digital health and health equity, indicating a multidimensional and interdisciplinary research trajectory.
Conclusions:
This study represents the first bibliometric analysis of social media-based cancer education, providing actionable insights to inform digital health literacy strategies and advance patient - centered, equitable healthcare.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.