Social networking sites and social support provided to breast cancer patients in Egypt : A Comparative Analytical Study

The current study aimed to monitor pages, groups, or accounts interested in providing support for breast cancer patients specifically on Twitter and Facebook, in addition to analyzing their content in terms of: “the types of support provided, its objectives, its source, the communication methods used to achieve it, and the extent of its diversity among texts, images, drawings, videos, and others.” They are collected, interpreted, analyzed and conclusions drawn from them. The study sample consisted of (168) content published on the official page of the Baheya Foundation for Breast Cancer, representing (55%) of the materials published on the page out of the total (305) materials published during the analysis period, as well as analyzing the content of (125) published on the page of the Egyptian Foundation for Cancer Control. Breast cancer represents (59%) of the total (212) articles published during the analysis period; where the researcher made a comprehensive inventory of the content related to the support provided to breast cancer patients and recovering from it, excluding all materials related to awareness only, or related to the request for financial support from the general public to patients “Support Bahia”, during the period from the first of October 2018 to December 31 of The same year, the researcher also relied on conducting interviews with social media specialists at Baheya Breast Cancer Foundation, and the Egyptian Foundation for Breast Cancer Control, to find out the goals of creating the two pages and their message. The results of the search resulted in the presence of about (79) pages in the Arabic language on the Facebook site concerned with breast cancer. About breast cancer?”, “Let’s cooperate against breast cancer,” and “Information about breast cancer. Few of the pages are interested in support, even if these pages lack the supervision of specialists from doctors, psychologists and social workers, and the orientation of these pages is consistent with what was stated in foreign studies Of which 8 out of (111) websites were under the supervision of health professionals, and these pages were also concerned with presenting the experiences of recovered women, some of which were created by recovered women, such as: “Together against Breast Cancer” and “New Life” page, “My days with breast cancer”, and the results of the search on Facebook revealed the existence of pages belonging to official institutions, “non-profit civil society organizations”, as well as the pages of “Baheya Foundation” and the “Egyptian Foundation for Breast Cancer Control” page. The pages are concerned with the immediate publication of various content between awareness-raising content for women in general, and supportive content for cancer patients and those recovering from it, as well as the large number of its followers.