TY  - JOUR
AU  - Feliciano, Josemari T
AU  - Salmi, Liz
AU  - Blotner, Charlie
AU  - Hayden, Adam
AU  - Nduom, Edjah K
AU  - Kwan, Bethany M
AU  - Katz, Matthew S
AU  - Claus, Elizabeth B
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/10/8
TI  - Brain Tumor Discussions on Twitter (#BTSM): Social Network Analysis
JO  - J Med Internet Res
SP  - e22005
VL  - 22
IS  - 10
KW  - brain tumors
KW  - social media
KW  - health care
KW  - patient support
KW  - network analysis
AB  - Background: The Brain Tumor Social Media (#BTSM) Twitter hashtag was founded in February 2012 as a disease-specific hashtag for patients with brain tumor. Objective: To understand #BTSM’s role as a patient support system, we describe user descriptors, growth, interaction, and content sharing. Methods: We analyzed all tweets containing #BTSM from 2012 to 2018 using the Symplur Signals platform to obtain data and to describe Symplur-defined user categories, tweet content, and trends in use over time. We created a network plot with all publicly available retweets involving #BTSM in 2018 to visualize key stakeholders and their connections to other users. Results: From 2012 to 2018, 59,764 unique users participated in #BTSM, amassing 298,904 tweets. The yearly volume of #BTSM tweets increased by 264.57% from 16,394 in 2012 to 43,373 in 2018 with #BTSM constantly trending in the top 15 list of disease hashtags, as well the top 15 list of tweet chats. Patient advocates generated the most #BTSM tweets (33.13%), while advocacy groups, caregivers, doctors, and researchers generated 7.01%, 4.63%, 3.86%, and 3.37%, respectively. Physician use, although still low, has increased over time. The 2018 network plot of retweets including #BTSM identifies a number of key stakeholders from the patient advocate, patient organization, and medical researcher domains and reveals the extent of their reach to other users. Conclusions: From its start in 2012, #BTSM has grown exponentially over time. We believe its growth suggests its potential as a global source of brain tumor information on Twitter for patients, advocates, patient organizations as well as health care professionals and researchers. 
SN  - 1438-8871
UR  - http://www.jmir.org/2020/10/e22005/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/22005
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33030435
DO  - 10.2196/22005
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/22005
ER  -