Recent research on the social network concept and cancer

Purpose of review This review covers articles in 2018 and early 2019 that employed the concept of networks and social interactions in research on how patients with cancer cope, receive and respond to medical treatment and allied support. The use of social aspects, and more formally the method of social network analysis for research on social aspects of cancer is quite new. Although we paid special attention to articles that used formal social network analysis, we noted that those articles cover just over a quarter of the material we reviewed. Most articles that incorporated social aspects of cancer did not intend to formalize those aspects but treated the network concept as a way to characterize social support, social influence, or social responsibilities. Recent findings We identified 74 recent articles that mentioned the network concept for research about cancer, excluding gene interaction networks. Of those 74 articles, 21 measured specific relationships between individuals or organizations and/or attributes of those individuals or organizations connected to participants or to others. Primary foci of the network analysis and nonnetwork analysis studies were breast cancer, social support for patients, and they usually at least considered sex and age of the cancer patients/survivors. Social media received some attention, and there were some studies considering quality of life and mental health. Among network analysis studies, size of network and number of people providi...
Source: Current Opinion in Supportive and Palliative Care - Category: Palliative Care Tags: LIVING WITH CANCER AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF TREATMENT: Edited by Lynn Calman and Natasha Campling Source Type: research