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Improving cancer survivors’ e-health literacy via online health communities (OHCs): a social support perspective

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Abstract

Purpose

Cancer survivors should have adequate e-health literacy to help them better use online health information. Online health communities (OHCs) can offer cancer survivors different types of social support that can represent another resource to improve health outcomes. However, there is little knowledge of how these OHC are directly related to a cancer survivors’ e-health literacy. This study explores how different types of social support in OHCs are associated with cancer survivors’ e-health literacy.

Methods

A questionnaire was developed to collect data from two Chinese OHCs used by cancer survivors. The questionnaire is composed of two parts: six sociodemographic variables (i.e., gender, age, city, education, tenure, and prior Internet experience), two scales for informational support behaviors (i.e., health knowledge seeking and provision of health knowledge), a measure of emotional support within such a setting, and a measure of e-health literacy. Based on 162 complete samples, we determined the measurement properties of the scales used, provided descriptive statistics on major sociodemographic variables and conducted bivariate and multivariable hierarchical regression.

Results

For cancer survivors, females demonstrate higher levels of e-health literacy. Higher education level was related to higher e-health literacy. Health knowledge seeking, contributing to health knowledge, and emotional support were all positively associated with e-health literacy. The interaction effect between health knowledge and emotional support is positively associated with e-health literacy.

Conclusions

Informational support and emotional support, as two major subtypes of social support within resources available in OHCs, are positively associated with e-health literacy among cancer survivors.

Implications for Cancer Survivors

Cancer survivors might benefit from an active strategy for improving personal e-health literacy that includes more active informational involvement and emotional support rather than a passive lurking through e-health information and seeking and reading postings in OHCs.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the reviewer for his/her constructive and actionable suggestions in helping us to improve this paper. We are grateful to MiJian (www.mijian360.com) and YuAiGongWu (www.yuaigongwu.com) for their help in data collection.

Funding

Dr. Zhou received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71501062), Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research of Chinese Ministry of Education (grant number 19JZD021), Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Research Project (grant number 2019A101002110), and Shantou University STU Scientific Research Initiation Grant (grant number STF18011). Dr. Wang received financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71901106), Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Project (grant number 18YJC630169), and Philosophy and Social Science Foundation in Colleges and Universities of Jiangsu Education Department (grant number 2018SJA0818).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shantou University Business School, No. 243 Daxue Road, Shantou, 515063, Guangdong, China

    Junjie Zhou

  2. Jiangnan University School of Business, No. 1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi, 214122, Jiangsu, China

    Changyu Wang

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  1. Junjie Zhou
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Correspondence to Changyu Wang.

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This study was approved by the Shantou University Academic and Ethics Board. No clinical trials or intervention for humans was involved in this study. No participant identification information was collected.

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Electronic informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Zhou, J., Wang, C. Improving cancer survivors’ e-health literacy via online health communities (OHCs): a social support perspective. J Cancer Surviv 14, 244–252 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11764-019-00833-2

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