The C word and Christian faith: cancer survivors' evaluations of support messages

Cancer is a leading cause of death and extreme distress for people diagnosed with the disease and everyone in that person’s social network, with 1.9 million new cancer cases predicted to occur in the U.S. in 2022. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, family and friends of the diagnosed person try to offer social support to comfort the person with cancer. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, not everyone’s support attempts result in comfort for the cancer patient. In this study, I used a mixed methods approach (quantitative and qualitative) to examine social support messages family and friends have said to people with cancer. Through 13 participant interviews, I uncovered the types of support messages people with cancer receive, the quality of the support messages people offer to cancer patients, and how the quality of religious support messages relates to the quality of secular support messages. Both the qualitative and quantitative results indicated informational support messages are poorly received by participants, tangible support messages are vital to the wellbeing of cancer patients, and Christians with cancer are more receptive to support messages when the message sender is of the same faith.