1. Use of GoFundMe® to crowdfund complementary and alternative medicine treatments for cancer
- Author
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Song, Sikai, Cohen, Andrew J, Lui, Hansen, Mmonu, Nnenaya A, Brody, Hartley, Patino, German, Liaw, Aron, Butler, Christi, Fergus, Kirkpatrick B, Mena, Jorge, Lee, Austin, Weiser, Jeremy, Johnson, Kelly, and Breyer, Benjamin N
- Subjects
Biomedical and Clinical Sciences ,Oncology and Carcinogenesis ,Cancer ,Clinical Research ,Complementary and Integrative Health ,Complementary Therapies ,Databases ,Factual ,Health Promotion ,Humans ,Motivation ,Neoplasm Staging ,Neoplasms ,Search Engine ,Web Browser ,Complementary and alternative medicine ,Social media ,Crowdfunding ,Cancer treatment ,Patient perspective ,Oncology & Carcinogenesis ,Oncology and carcinogenesis - Abstract
PurposeComplementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is common amongst cancer patients. However, there is growing concern about its safety and efficacy. Online crowdfunding campaigns represent a unique avenue to understand the cancer patient's perspective for using CAM or declining conventional cancer therapy (CCT).MethodsFive hundred GoFundMe campaigns from 2012 to 2019 detailing financial need for cancer treatment were randomly selected and reviewed for endorsement of CAM use, reasons for using CAM, and reasons for declining CCT. Descriptive statistics were used to compare patient and campaign characteristics between 250 CAM users and 250 non-CAM users.ResultsCompared to non-CAM users, CAM users were more likely to be female (70% vs. 54%, p
- Published
- 2020