Abstract

Background :  Internet is a leading source of health misinformation, any publicly available information which is misleading, false or not in consensus with the best evidence by scientific community is health misinformation, similarly, cancer misinformation can be defined as, a piece of information related to treatment, diagnosis, prevention and suggesting possible cure of a specific cancer type which is not in line with the expert consensus of scientific community and available evidence (Suarez-Lledo & Alvarez-Galvez, 2021; Swire-Thompson & Johnson, 2024).

Methods:

In this study we conducted 10 semi- structured interviews with clinicians from the North region -India 

Objectives: To find out what are the types of breast cancer misinformation patients are sharing with clinicians and what are the contributing factors which make patients susceptible to the breast cancer misinformation and how clinicians are combating the misinformation.

Results:

There is significant amount of misinformation about screening, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention of breast cancer. Such as “wearing a black bra cause cancer”, “Biopsies further spreads the cancer cells to other parts of the body”. Also, there is prevalence of positive attitude of patients towards alternative medicine and magic remedies for the cure of breast cancer due to various reason such as socio-economic and socio-cultural. Support groups of patients and peers also contribute to the breast cancer misinformation among patients. Clinicians also mentioned the role of social media regarding the spread of breast cancer myths and misinformation. Research found that Lack of information and education on breast cancer, societal stereotypes causing embarrassment, and general ignorance as major aspects which influence people to consume misinformation and causes delays in diagnosis as well as treatment.

Conclusions: This study highlights the need to scale up the breast cancer awareness campaigns as early detection is the main key to survival. 

Practice implications

Since Clinicians are combating the misinformation through dialogue and awareness campaigns at societal and individual level. There is need of governmental and policy level interventions to combat breast cancer related misinformation on social media.