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#Deathbedlive: the end-of-life trajectory, reflected in a cancer patient’s tweets

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Palliative Care, January 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#17 of 1,512)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
2 blogs
twitter
98 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
27 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
166 Mendeley
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Title
#Deathbedlive: the end-of-life trajectory, reflected in a cancer patient’s tweets
Published in
BMC Palliative Care, January 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12904-018-0273-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Joanna Taylor, Claudia Pagliari

Abstract

Understanding physical and psycho-social illness trajectories towards the end of life can help in the planning of palliative and supportive care. With terminal patients increasingly seeking and sharing health information and support via social media, it is timely to examine whether these trajectories are reflected in their digital narratives. In this exploratory study, we analysed the Twitter feed of prominent cancer sufferer and physician, Kate Granger, over the final 6 months of her life. With the consent of Kate's widower, Chris Pointon, 1628 Twitter posts from @GrangerKate were manually screened. The 550 tweets judged relevant to her disease were qualitatively content analysed with reference to the six modifiable dimensions of the patient experience in Emanuel and Emanuel's 'framework for a good death'. The frequency of each tweet category was charted over time and textual content was examined and cross-referenced with key events, to obtain a deeper understanding of its nature and significance. Tweets were associated with physical symptoms (N = 270), psychological and cognitive symptoms (N = 213), social relationships and support (N = 85), economic demands and care giving needs (N = 85), hopes and expectations (N = 51) and spiritual beliefs (N = 7). While medical treatments and procedures were discussed in detail, medical information-seeking was largely absent, likely reflecting Kate clinical expertise. Spirituality was expressed more as hope in treatments or "someone out there listening", than in religious terms. The high value of Kate's palliative care team was a dominant theme in the support category, alongside the support she received from her online community of fellow sufferers, friends, family and colleagues. Significant events, such as medical procedures and hospital stays generated the densest Twitter engagement. Transitions between trajectory phases were marked by changes in the relative frequency of tweet-types. In Kate's words, "the power of patient narrative cannot be underestimated". While this analysis spanned only 6 months, it yielded rich insights. The results reflect theorised end-of-life dimensions and reveal the potential of social media data and digital bio-ethnography to shine a light on terminal patients' lived experiences, coping strategies and support needs, suggesting new opportunities for enhancing personalised palliative care and avenues for further research.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 98 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 166 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 166 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 25 15%
Researcher 20 12%
Student > Bachelor 14 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 11 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 9 5%
Other 25 15%
Unknown 62 37%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Nursing and Health Professions 25 15%
Medicine and Dentistry 24 14%
Social Sciences 16 10%
Psychology 15 9%
Business, Management and Accounting 8 5%
Other 14 8%
Unknown 64 39%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 73. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 November 2023.
All research outputs
#586,425
of 25,402,889 outputs
Outputs from BMC Palliative Care
#17
of 1,512 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#13,799
of 450,424 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Palliative Care
#2
of 50 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,402,889 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,512 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 450,424 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 50 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.