JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cancer survivors are likely to face physical, mental, financial, social, and emotional difficulties, regardless of whether or when they receive treatment. Many cancer survivors report an inability to understand the explanations of health care professionals as well as other poor communication. However, empirical evidence for such “poor communication” remains scarce.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to clarify the information sources that are trusted by cancer survivors according to patient attributes. Specifically, we classified patients according to sex, treatment status, and cancer type to determine the best approach for disseminating appropriate information according to patient trends.

Methods:

We administered a cross-sectional survey to 350 cancer survivors aged 20–80 years according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys. Items in the preliminary survey included sociodemographic information, “cancer stage,” “current treatment status,” “date of cancer diagnosis,” and “date of termination of cancer treatment” in the preliminary survey, and those in the main survey included “what you have researched about cancer,” “what are your cancer information sources,” “what social media sites or applications do you use to collect cancer information,” “information seeking difficulties,” “reliable information sources,” “intention to use hospital-recommended counseling support and information gathering applications and services,” “advantages of using hospital-recommended counseling support and information gathering applications and services,” “communication with surroundings,” and the Japanese version of the 10-Item Personality Inventory (which measures the Big Five characteristics of extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism). Data were analyzed using latent class analysis (LCA), and Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn-Bonferroni tests were used to compare the latent classes.

Results:

The LCA identified three classes: a group of women under follow-up, a group of men under follow-up, and a group under treatment. There were significantly more people who reported that they “could not ask the doctor questions” in the group under treatment than in the group of men under follow-up (P = .01), the latter of whom also had a higher tendency for neuroticism (P = .02). The male group undergoing follow-up care had significantly higher responses for “my doctor was easy to consult” (P < .001) and “I felt my doctor was knowledgeable and experienced” (P = .01) than the other groups, which confirmed their tendency to value smooth communication with their doctors.

Conclusions:

We revealed differences in trust tendencies and psychological characteristics of information sources among sex and treatment stage groups. These findings indicate that cancer survivors seek different types of support in regard to information gathering depending on their treatment status and sex.