Social Network Analysis for Research of Cancer Patients’ Health-Related Quality of Life

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#The purpose of this study was to identify the knowledge structure of articles related to the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of patients with five different types of cancer. @*Methods@#Author keywords from the articles related to breast (508), prostate (319), cervical (45), colorectal (123), and gastric cancer (37) on Web of Science (1990~2013) were extracted and classified into seven domains of HRQoL. Social network analysis was performed using the NetMiner program. @*Results@#Core keywords with the highest degree centrality were ‘depression’ (breast), ‘radiotherapy’ (prostate), ‘sexual dysfunction’ (cervical), ‘colorectal cancer surgery’ (colorectal), and ‘gastrectomy’ (gastric). Core keywords with the highest betweenness centrality were ‘chemotherapy’ (breast), ‘radiotherapy’ (prostate), ‘sexual dysfunction’ (cervical), ‘fatigue’ (colorectal), and ‘gastrectomy’ (gastric). In addition, the five types of roles of the core keywords in the seven domains of HRQoL, verified through brokerage analysis, are coordinator, consultant, gatekeeper, representative, and liaison. @*Conclusion@#This study examined the HRQoL trends of patients with five different types of cancer. The findings of this study can be helpful for nursing intervention development to improve patients’ HRQoL according to the five different types of cancer.