Current landscape of social media use pertaining to glioblastoma by various stakeholders

Mohammed Ali Alvi; Lior M Elkaim; Jordan J Levett; Alejandro Pando; Sabrina Roy; Nardin Samuel; Naif M Alotaibi; Gelareh Zadeh

doi:10.1093/noajnl/vdad039

Current landscape of social media use pertaining to glioblastoma by various stakeholders

Neurooncol Adv. 2023 May 24;5(1):vdad039. doi: 10.1093/noajnl/vdad039. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Mohammed Ali Alvi¹, Lior M Elkaim², Jordan J Levett³, Alejandro Pando⁴, Sabrina Roy⁵, Nardin Samuel¹, Naif M Alotaibi⁶, Gelareh Zadeh⁷

Affiliations

¹ Division of Neurosurgery, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
² Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
³ Department of Medicine, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴ Department of Neurosurgery, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey, USA.
⁵ Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁶ Department of Neurosurgery, National Neuroscience Institute, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Division of Neurosurgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Background: Given the potential for social media to allow widespread public engagement, its role in healthcare, including in cancer care as a support network, is garnering interest. To date, the use of social media in neuro-oncology has not been systematically explored. In the current manuscript, we sought to review Twitter use on glioblastoma among patients, caregivers, providers, researchers, and other stakeholders.

Methods: The Twitter application programming interface (API) database was surveyed from inception to May 2022 to identify tweets about glioblastoma. Number of tweet likes, retweets, quotes, and total engagement were noted for each tweet. Geographic location, number of followers, and number of Tweets were noted for users. We also categorized Tweets based on their underlying themes. A natural language processing (NLP) algorithm was used to assign a polarity score, subjectivity score, and analysis label to each Tweet for sentiment analysis.

Results: A total of 1690 unique tweets from 1000 accounts were included in our analyses. The frequency of tweets increased from 2013 and peaked in 2018. The most common category among users was MD/researchers (21.6%, n = 216), followed by Media/News (20%, n = 200) and Business (10.7%); patients or caregivers accounted for only 4.7% (n = 47) while medical centers, journals, and foundations accounted for 5.4%, 3.7%, and 2.1%. The most common subjects that Tweets covered included research (54%), followed by personal experience (18.2%) and raising awareness (14%). In terms of sentiment, 43.6% of Tweets were classified as positive, 41.6% as neutral, and 14.9% as negative; a subset analysis of "personal experience" tweets revealed a higher proportion of negative Tweets (31.5%) and less neutral tweets (25%). Only media (β = 8.4; 95% CI [4.4, 12.4]) and follower count (minimally) predicted higher levels of Tweet engagement.

Conclusion: This comprehensive analysis of tweets on glioblastoma found that the academic community are the most common user group on Twitter. Sentiment analysis revealed that most negative tweets are related to personal experience. These analyses provide the basis for further work into supporting and developing the care of patients with glioblastoma.

Keywords: GBM; glioblastoma; social media; twitter.

Publication types

Review