Investigating relationships among cancer survivors’ engagement in an online support community, social support perceptions, well-being, and moderating effects of existing (offline) social support

Purpose Socially supportive relationships help cancer survivors cope with their diagnosis and may improve quality of life; however, many survivors report unmet support and information needs. Online communities of survivors may address these needs, but research on their benefits have been equivocal. This cross-sectional, self-report study investigated relationships among cancer survivors’ level of engagement in an online survivor community (The American Cancer Society Cancer Survivors Network®; CSN), perceptions of emotional/informational support available from online communities (“online social support”), well-being, and moderating effects of “offline social support.” Methods Participants were 1255 registered users of the CSN who completed surveys between 2013 and 2014. Three types of engagement with the CSN— social/communal , interpersonal communication , and informational/search engagement—were identified through principal components analysis. Regression analyses examined hypotheses. Results More frequent social/communal and interpersonal communication engagement were associated with increased online social support ( p