Abstract

Objectives/purpose: Shared Lives Cancer (SL:C) is a new and innovative online resource, aiming to support people affected by cancer by making qualitative lived experience research publicly accessible. SL:C is presented as a dynamic, searchable database of quotes and stories concerning individuals’ lived cancer experience. This presentation will feature an overview of the development of SL:C as well as a live demo.

Methods: SL:C is populated utilising existing qualitative data collected from research covering a range of ages, genders, cancer types, treatment type, as well as, from informal carers. Extracted data is collated, analysed, and thematically coded before being presented as searchable quotes by a range of themes and keywords. The resource also hosts stories that provide a narrative overview of a person’s cancer experience.

Results: Coding resulted in the identification of 870 unique quotes that are searchable by 40 broad themes and over 70 keywords. Results can be filtered by age, gender and cancer type and searched by keywords. For example, a search using the theme ‘medication’ would retrieve all quotes associated with the theme ‘medication’, whilst a search for a specific medication as a keyword would retrieve quotes associated with the named medication. The site currently hosts 15 patient stories.

Conclusion and clinical implications: SL:C has the potential to positively influence those affected by cancer by providing a unique user-friendly support platform whilst also informing cancer healthcare professionals and facilitating academic collaboration. Pilot and evaluation research are currently being designed to evaluate and improve website accessibility, usability, and functionality of SL:C, before its launch later in 2022.