Melanie Costin
Support Services Manager, Fight Bladder Cancer
Increasing numbers of men have been seeking support through an online forum. Has the switch to online helped men open up about health?
Our private online forum at Fight Bladder Cancer now has over 5,000 members and is supervised by administrators and 10 moderators from around the globe, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The evolution to online support
Over recent years, potentially sparked by the pandemic and the switch to online, we’ve seen more men seek support through our forum, webinars and online meetings. In previous years, it was mainly women seeking support. Now, more men are coming forward to seek support — whether for themselves or their partners.
Men supporting men, online
Previously, our forum felt like a predominantly female space, at least in terms of the people engaging with posts, asking questions and offering support. This has changed in recent years and now feels much more diverse — with men supporting other men, checking in on each other and championing each other as treatment progresses.
Men are openly talking about their treatment in a way that we rarely saw a few years ago. Considering that men seeking support about bladder cancer are typically older, this feels like an attitude and behaviour change in a group who likely were not previously used to engaging in this way.
Men are openly talking about their treatment in
a way that we rarely saw a few years ago.
Accessible information and safe space
“The communication methods people were used to were hugely impacted during the pandemic. Many had no option but to use smartphones or learn how to do things online for the first time,” says Melanie Costin, Fight Bladder Cancer Support Manager.
“Historically, women have been more likely to chat on our private forum or join online discussions, but we are now seeing more male bladder cancer patients and carers finding us and talking openly and supporting each other.”
She explains that with older men having the highest incidences of bladder cancer, how they also seek help online is encouraging. “This paradigm shift means that many of our deprived and hard-to-reach populations of patients and carers are now having more opportunities to gain support and access meaningful information from our online resources,” she concludes.
