Abstract
Introduction On social media, several pieces of cancer-related information are being shared among
people. This study aims to survey the Nigerian public, exploring their opinions on
the influence (as per enlightenment) of cancer-related information on social media
on them, and explore their opinions on the reliability of cancer-related posts they
see on social media platforms.
Methods This study was a descriptive cross-sectional online survey of 236 Nigerians, using
an e-questionnaire. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 20 software (IBM
Corp, New York, NY, United States).
Results The majority (56.4%) of the respondents were females, 66.5% were within the age range
of 20 to 29 years, and 92.4% had tertiary level of education. Virtually all (98.7%)
of them had an Internet-enabled phone, and 99.6% were users of social media. The most
used social media platform among them was WhatsApp while the most educative social
media platform, according to them, was Facebook. Also, 96.6% (227/235) of those respondents
who were social media users were of the opinion that social media is very useful for
cancer education. However, only 68.5% (161/235) of them had learnt something new about
cancer on social media platforms, of which 23.0% (37/161) rated the cancer information
they have accessed on social media to be somewhat reliable.
Conclusion Social media is highly influential in educating Nigerians on issues pertaining to
cancer. However, not all cancer-related information posted on various social media
platforms is reliable; hence, social media users should always take extra caution
while consuming cancer-related posts on social media platforms.
Keywords
social media - cancer - education - information - reliability - Nigeria
