Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Leveraging Social Media to Improve Patient-Provider Sexual Health Communication in Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Care

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/mp48sn062

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  • Sexual health is an important part of quality of life for adolescents and young adults (AYAs), but a cancer diagnosis and treatment can have severe physical and psychosocial consequences on this aspect of health. Despite the frequency and distressing nature of sexual health concerns among AYA cancer survivors, sexual health remains poorly addressed for this population, largely due to insufficient patient-provider communication. Social media has been suggested as a potential tool to improve patient-provider communication in AYA cancer care, but it is unclear whether and how these platforms can be leveraged for this purpose, particularly for sensitive topics like sexual health. The purpose of this research was to determine how social media, and specifically Twitter, can be used to facilitate sexual health communication between AYA cancer survivors and healthcare providers (HCPs). There were two aims to achieve this: (1) To determine the network structure of the AYA cancer community on Twitter and examine the content of sexual health communication occurring within this network; and (2) To identify barriers and facilitators to HCP use of Twitter to communicate with AYA survivors about sexual health issues. In Aim 1, social network analysis was used to determine the structure of the network formed by people tweeting about AYA cancer. Self-provided profile information was used to characterize Twitter accounts as AYA cancer survivors, HCPs, or other stakeholders (e.g., advocacy organizations, researchers), and the mentioned relationships among accounts were examined. Tweets related to sexual health were extracted, and content analysis was used to determine what sexual health topics were discussed and how sexual health knowledge was shared among different stakeholders in this network. Results revealed that AYA survivors and HCPs are connected structurally, and both tweet about sexual health, but their discussions are not aligned topically. In Aim 2, individual interviews were conducted with HCPs regarding their perceptions of using social media to promote sexual health communication with AYA cancer survivors. Thematic analysis of these interviews demonstrated that HCPs believe social media can be used to supplement clinical sexual health discussions with AYA cancer survivors and make this communication more patient-centered, but they desire more training, guidelines, and resources to help them navigate social media for this purpose. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the strong potential of Twitter as a tool to promote patient-centered sexual health communication in AYA cancer care, but further developments must be made to optimize this approach. HCPs can benefit from additional training and more detailed practical guidelines on using social media to improve patient-provider communication, especially around sensitive topics like sexual health. Clarifying the parameters of social media for patient-provider sexual health communication can increase HCPs’ comfort with this approach and improve alignment of their communication with AYA cancer survivors’ sexual health information and support needs.
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