Online and offline social networks in illness management of elderly patients with asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: mixed-method study using quantitative social network assessment and qualitative analysis (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Andreou ◽  
Amar Dhand ◽  
Ivaylo Vassilev ◽  
Chris J Griffiths ◽  
Pietro Panzarasa ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Individuals' social network and social support are fundamental determinants of self-management and self-efficacy. OBJECTIVE To identify how online and offline social networks play a role in health management for patients with chronic respiratory conditions. To explore the role of support from online peers in patients’ self-management, and understand the barriers and potential benefits to digital social interventions. METHODS We recruited participants from a hospital-run singing group to a workshop in London, UK, and adapted PERSNET, a quantitative social network assessment tool on a secure open-source web platform (REDCap), to generate social maps of online and offline individuals involved in managing participants’ chronic respiratory conditions. The second workshop was replaced by telephone interviews due to COVID-19 lockdown. We analyzed the transcripts using thematic analysis. RESULTS Seven participants (2M, 5F), with an age range of 64 to 81, produced network maps that comprised between 5 and 10 individuals, including family members, healthcare professionals, colleagues, activity groups, offline and online friends, and peers. Participants with small, close-knit networks received physical, health, and emotional support, whereas those with more diverse and large networks benefited from accessing alternative/complementary sources of information. Participants in the latter type of network tended to communicate more openly about their illness, shared the impact their illness had on their day-to-day life, and demonstrated distinct traits in terms of identity and perception of chronic disease. During the COVID-19 lockdown, additional themes emerged, including the need to develop the ability to switch from offline to online communication. Participants described potential benefits of expanding their network to include online peers, as source of novel information, motivation, and access to supportive environments. Lack of technological skills, fear of being scammed, or preference for keeping illness-related problems for themselves/immediate family were reported as barriers to engage with online peer support. CONCLUSIONS The social network assessment tool proved feasible and acceptable. The visual maps facilitated reflections and enhanced participants’ understanding of the role of offline and online social networks in the management of chronic respiratory conditions. It also highlighted the work undertaken by the networks themselves in the self-management support of people with asthma or COPD. These data show the value of using a social network tool as an intervention that can support self-management, and as a research tool that can help assess and understand network structure and engagement in the self-management support of people with chronic respiratory conditions. Patients’ preferences to share illness experiences with online peers, and the contexts in which this can be acceptable, should be considered when developing and offering digital social interventions. Future studies can explore the evolution of the social networks of people with chronic illnesses to understand whether willingness to engage with online peers can change over time. CLINICALTRIAL n/a

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita de Cássia Melão de Morais ◽  
Tania Vignuda de Souza ◽  
Isabel Cristina dos Santos Oliveira ◽  
Juliana Rezende Montenegro Medeiros de Moraes ◽  
Elena Araújo Martinez ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Objective: To analyze the role of the social network configured by the family/companion and their implications for their stay during the hospitalization of the child in the pediatric hospitalization unit. Method: Qualitative study with ten family members/companions of hospitalized children. Data collection was done through the technique of individual interview, which occurred in the period from February to December 2015. The analysis was thematic, in light of the theoretical reference of "Social Networks" described by Lia Sanicola. Results and discussion: The main role of the social network was emotional and material support, and the main components of this network were: companion, mother, aunt and daughter, as well as nursing team, physician and other family members/companions. Final considerations and implications for the practice: It was verified that the totality of the interviewees was female, however, the husband was the most important member of the social network for the family members involved, since they perform the material/financial and emotional function. In addition, the participants consider that they are responsible for all care to the family and, in the condition in that they are, they understand it as a favor provided by the other members of the network. Identifying the composition of the social networks of family members/companions provides a better targeting of care in order to strengthen the social support received.


2019 ◽  
pp. 097215091986886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ameeta Jaiswal-Dale ◽  
Fanny Simon-Lee ◽  
Giovanna Zanotti ◽  
Peter Cincinelli

The aim of this research is to apply the tool of social network analysis to situations in capital sourcing, including early stage financing. The study is conducted within the social network of Medical Alley Association of Minnesota (MAA). We investigate the correlation between the main centrality measures: closeness, degree and betweenness, and the amount of funding received by the 163 MAA members during 2009–2012. Companies benefit from their social network to get access to better financing. The empirical results also provide a road map to encourage the sponsored or spontaneous growth of other social networks in related fields. Despite the financial crisis, the empirical results show how competition works when firms have established relations with others. Where an intersection occurs is merely an empirical curiosity and the causation resides in the intersection of relations. The relation that intersects on an organization determines the player’s competitive advantage.


2020 ◽  
pp. 000765032090713
Author(s):  
Daniel Samosh

I examine the career advancement facilitators of organizational stakeholders who may be identified as simultaneously “core” and “fringe” in this article, via the insights of 21 leaders with disabilities. To navigate barriers and advance their careers, these leaders benefited from three categories of facilitators, including career self-management strategies, social networks, and organizational and societal factors. Facilitators are synthesized with a metaphor, the three-legged stool, which depicts three foundational pillars that underlie the leaders’ success. Focusing on an understudied element of the social networks pillar, I examine how leaders’ external networks (family, friends, acquaintances, and role models) facilitated their career advancement. Findings point to the role of strong and weak ties in developing leaders’ career self-management strategies as well as their access to core stakeholder positions. Last, contributions, implications, and limitations of this article are discussed.


Author(s):  
José C. Delgado

Current social networks are centralized and driven by the providers’ formats, policies, and rules. Subscribing to several networks usually implies duplicating profile information and the effort of replicating changes when needed. Recently, there have been several proposals to support decentralized social networks, but these maintain the client-server paradigm. This chapter recognizes that the user is no longer a mere consumer, but rather a producer, and calls for a paradigm shift, with the user at the center of the social network scenarios, taking the role of an active service, in equal terms with social network providers. This leads to a unified user model: both individual and institutional entities are both users and providers and share the same protocols, although with different emphasis. We call this the user-centric approach and show a migration path from current social network models. To support this approach, we present a new Web access device, the browserver, which includes a browser and a server working in close cooperation, with the goal of replacing the classical browser but being backwards compatible with it to ease the migration path.


Author(s):  
V. A. Sushko ◽  
G. B. Pronchev

The article analyzes the processes taking place in the youth environment in the context of digitalization of society. The role of social networks is discussed. Since its inception, network analysis has been formed as an interdisciplinary direction in which psychologists, sociologists, communication specialists, anthropologists, mathematicians and statisticians combine their efforts. The social network as a way of organizing social knowledge requires a special methodological approach, different from the traditional methods of analyzing sociological information. “Digital habits” significantly affect the behavior of young people, change the “traditional” way of life. The article is of interest to specialists dealing with problems of sociology of youth, sociology of global processes, methodology of sociological research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 379-397
Author(s):  
Shanaz Sadeq Mohamad ◽  
Sara Mohsen Qadir

In line with the developments of various social networks, it has made the public see a change for all the various issues in the nation, one of which was the issue of electronic education, which has been influenced by the social networks, especially by students. Therefore, from this perspective, the researcher in the research scientifically shows the role of the social networks in creating public opinion about the process of electronic study. This research is a description, a researcher who has used the research to achieve detailed and necessary data and information about the subject of survey methodology research. Among the students of Kurdistan University, Salahaddin University and World University students are research samples of 422 students of both maleand female genders, the most important results that researchers have reached are the social networks that are a reason for creating public opinion and all The data spread through the social network to a process have created public opinion about the electronic study process, the strongest network, the Facebook social network to create public opinion in Kurdistan. In the short list of research, recommendations and suggestions have been made.


Knowledge Management literature lays emphasis on the fact that a major chunk of knowledge dissemination occurs through the various forms of social networks that exist within the organizations. A social network is a simple structure comprising of set of actors or nodes that may have relationships ties with one another. The social network analysis (SNA) will help in mapping and measuring formal and informal relationships to understand what facilitates or impedes the knowledge flows that bind interacting units. This paper aims at studying the knowledge flows that happen through the social networks. It first, provides a conceptual framework and review of literature on the recent research and application of knowledge mapping and SNA, followed by a discussion on application of SNA for mapping knowledge flows in a pharmaceutical firm. In the last part, Knowledge maps are presented to illustrate the actual knowledge flow in firm.


Servis plus ◽  
10.12737/5533 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-21
Author(s):  
Артур Михеев ◽  
Artur Mikheev

The article present the results of research into the role of social networking in the life of under-age (aged 10–18) people with special needs (the number of respondents —120 under-age people). The aim of the research is to identify the degree of influence that social networks have on the process of social adaptation of under-age people with special needs. Each of the social networks under scrutiny was analyzed as to the user opportunities it has to offer and the user needs it can satisfy. The author also provides a definition of (1) the concept of a social network, (2) a social graph as a major element of a social network, (3) a person with special needs, and (4) population disability.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (112) ◽  
pp. 20150798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael A. Barrio ◽  
Tzipe Govezensky ◽  
Robin Dunbar ◽  
Gerardo Iñiguez ◽  
Kimmo Kaski

In this paper, we examine the role of lies in human social relations by implementing some salient characteristics of deceptive interactions into an opinion formation model, so as to describe the dynamical behaviour of a social network more realistically. In this model, we take into account such basic properties of social networks as the dynamics of the intensity of interactions, the influence of public opinion and the fact that in every human interaction it might be convenient to deceive or withhold information depending on the instantaneous situation of each individual in the network. We find that lies shape the topology of social networks, especially the formation of tightly linked, small communities with loose connections between them. We also find that agents with a larger proportion of deceptive interactions are the ones that connect communities of different opinion, and, in this sense, they have substantial centrality in the network. We then discuss the consequences of these results for the social behaviour of humans and predict the changes that could arise due to a varying tolerance for lies in society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 1346
Author(s):  
Alexey SMIRNOV ◽  
Natalia BELOZEROVA ◽  
Natalia ALANICHEVA ◽  
Irina TRUBNIKOVA ◽  
Yuriy MOTORYGIN

The article is focused on the impact of social networks which are becoming increasingly important for information dissemination, user-centered response and efficient coordination between residents and governmental departments at all stages of a disaster. We intend to examine the definition of ‘social network», the most important types of emergency domain-related social media, their functions and benefits. We also propose to investigate the recent activities of the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation in the sphere of emergency prevention and risk reduction via accessing the social networks pages and assessing their effectiveness.


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