Qualitative thematic analysis of online forum discussions on post-radiation prostate cancer survivorship.

Authors

Umar Ghaffar, Architha Sudhakar, Nizar Hakam, Jason L Lui, Christine Shieh, Kevin D Li, Behzad Abbasi, Charles P Jones, Nathan M Shaw, Lindsay A Hampson, Benjamin N Breyer

Published in

Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice. Jul 22, 2026. Epub Jul 22, 2026.

Abstract

To utilize online forums as a source of unprompted patient experiences in understanding the impacts of radiotherapy on patients with prostate cancer.
Three online forums: patient.info, Cancer Survivor Network (CSN), and CancerResearchUK were identified by a structured keyword search on Google and searched for relevant posts. Qualitative thematic analysis using grounded-theory principles was performed on publicly available online forum posts using Dedoose (Los Angeles, CA).
One hundred fifty-seven posts by 91 unique users were analyzed. The most frequently mentioned pelvic and abdominal adverse effects were "increased urine frequency" (n = 31) and "radiation-induced GI tract inflammation" (n = 28) respectively. The majority of posts showed that abdominal and pelvic adverse effects occurred after radiation treatment (n = 154) rather than during radiation treatment (n = 26). Most posts showed that patient's symptoms were ongoing (n = 68) as opposed to resolving with (n = 35) or without (n = 25) treatment.
Online forums were frequently utilized by post-radiation prostate cancer survivors to discuss their experiences and seek peer support. This study provides physicians a deeper understanding about morbidity of post-radiation prostate cancer patients through their own narrative and highlights principal issues resonating among this patient population.
For cancer survivors, these findings may facilitate more informed discussions with healthcare providers, improve awareness of potential treatment-related challenges, and underscore the value of peer support communities in survivorship care.

PMID:
42484986
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Jul 2026.

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