Exploring Patient-Reported Costs Related to Hepatitis C on the Medical Crowdfunding Page GoFundMe®

Abstract

Background: Successful medical crowdfunding campaigns may alleviate or even eliminate the financial burden of expensive, cumulative medical bills. GoFundMe® crowdfunding pages for hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients were reviewed and analyzed to better understand the characteristics that contribute to a successful fundraising campaign in a disease often associated with patients with a lower social standing or stigma. Methods: A pilot cross-sectional study of all publicly available GoFundMe® crowdfunding pages was conducted for posts related to HCV on GoFundMe® in June 2019. Similar to data extraction steps in a systematic literature review, page data were reviewed to identify whether the source of the patient’s HCV infection was disclosed, if disclosed then how did the patient report contracting the disease, and all costs reported in the description as part of the rationale for requesting funds. Descriptive statistics of category and numeric variables were reported for the full sample, and exploratory analyses were conducted to determine any potential associations with categorical variables and the amount of donations received, categorized as small (