Online Social Support Groups/Communities

Numerous studies over the past two decades suggest that people with a variety of health concerns are increasingly turning to online networks for social support. This has led to the rise of online support groups/communities for people facing health concerns. Researchers have found that these groups/communities provide patients, disease survivors, and caregivers a number of advantages and disadvantages in terms of mobilizing social support for their health-related concerns. This chapter will examine these issues in greater detail as well as the theoretical and practical implications of this body of research for patients who use online support communities to help cope with and manage a variety of health issues. It will provide an overview of online social support and health outcomes, discuss key processes and theoretical explanations for the efficacy of online support communities for people facing health concerns, and the limitations of this body of research as well as an agenda for future communication research on health-related online support groups/communities.

Young people's use and experience of the Internet during the COVID-19 lockdown:

No studies we are aware of have explored youth’s experiences of the association between their Internet use and well-being during the COVID-19 lockdown. To fill this void, we used survey data of a representative sample (N = 734) of young Norwegians (16–26 years) collected a few weeks into the lockdown in May 2020. Findings show a substantial increase in use of several Internet activities—in particular, video calls and streaming services. Snapchat and Messenger were the most important services to keep in touch with friends. Online social support significantly predicts higher well-being, while heavy Internet use during a regular lockdown day significantly predicts low well-being, particularly among the older females. Analysis of free text responses shows that excessive Internet use during lockdown has led to poor well-being among many, both mentally (38 percent) and physically (17 percent). Many describe purposeless online scrolling or interactions as problematic. We conclude that future research on online well-being should focus more on perceived level of meaningful online activity.

The Impact of Social Support on Dementia Caregivers’ Psychological Well-being: Is Online Comparable to Offline?

Along with the groundbreaking development of communication technology, caregivers have migrated to online platforms to seek help. Social support theory, including main effect and moderation effect models, has provided a framework to understand the association among caregivers’ stress, support from others, and their well-being. Despite the prevalence of online use for seeking help among caregivers, studies on the use of online social support within the context of caregivers’ stressors and well-being are still underdeveloped. Guided by social support theory, this study aimed to examine the association of online social support (OnSS) and caregivers’ mental health (MH) as compared with offline social support (OffSS). A subsample of caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s from the Health Information National Trends Survey from 2017-2018 was selected (n=264). For an analysis, ordered logistic regression models with Jackknife estimation methods were applied using Stata 15.1SE. First, OffSS had a positive direct association with caregivers’ MH (Odds Ratio=12.48, p<.05) while OnSS did not. Next, the moderation effect model analysis found that OffSS interacted with caregiving burden while OnSS interacted with life stressors. The MH of caregivers who are in less favorable situations, such as working part-time while caring for a person with Alzheimer’s, living with economic hardship, and having health problems, tended to be significantly affected by OnSS. Identifying the different roles of OnSS and OffSS for caregivers’ MH, the findings of this study call for more attention to developing novel strategies and sensitive approaches to support family caregivers, especially those who fall in underserved groups.

Tracking the contours and nature of social support in Facebook mutual aid groups during the COVID-19 pandemic

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of mutual aid groups were established on social media and operated as platforms through which people could offer or request social support. Considering the importance of Facebook mutual aid groups during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK but also the lack of empirical papers regarding the trajectories and types of social support rendered available through the groups, our aims in this paper are threefold; first, to examine the trajectory of social support-related activity during the period between March – December 2020; second, to compare offers and requests of support during the peaks of the first and second waves; and third to provide a rich description of the types of social support that were offered or requested through the online mutual aid groups. Our findings suggest that online social support activity declined soon after the peak of the first pandemic wave and, at least in Facebook mutual aid groups, did not reach the levels observed during the first wave. Offers of support during the first wave were higher compared to offers during the second wave, and similar was the case for requests for support. Also, offers for support were higher compared to requests for support during both the first and second wave. Finally, users could use the Facebook mutual aid groups to offer and request various types of practical, emotional, and informational support. Limitations of our study as well as implications are considered.

“You Are Not Alone”–Opportunities and Challenges for University Students’ Collaborative Engagement When Dealing With Online Information About COVID-19

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, students had to cope with the challenging situation of handling a vast amount of potentially conflicting online information while staying informed. Reading conflicting scientific information has been shown to require cognitive effort for one to integrate it successfully, but reading such information during a crisis–such as the COVID-19 pandemic–may cause additional emotional stress, as students also had to cope with critical aspects of the pandemic (e.g., physical distancing and uncertainty). Different studies have indicated that in crises, stress can be relieved by seeking online social support (as a coping strategy). Similarly, working together (as collaborative learning) can also help people more critically discuss information on a cognitive level. Based on the approaches of online collaborative learning and online social support seeking, we were interested in whether an individual vs. collaborative communication setting would lead to any differences in students’ cognitive as well as emotional engagement with conflicting information about COVID-19. In a 2 × 2 mixed design, N = 109 education science students were exposed to two conflicting texts regarding COVID-19 testing that contained current scientific information. The online experiment was conducted in Germany in April 2020, which was the beginning of lockdown in that country. After reading the two texts, participants were asked to reflect on their engagement with the conflicting information either individually (individual group, n = 49) or via chat collaboratively (collaboration group, n = 60 in 30 dyads). With respect to participants’ written reflections (content-analyzed regarding cognitive as well as emotional engagement), participants in the collaborative group, compared to those in the individual group, more often discussed the pandemic in general and less often engaged emotionally when discussing the evidence from texts. All participants reported higher perceived information overload, lower self-efficacy in sourcing information about COVID-19, and higher active coping strategies after the reflection task compared to before reading the information, with no significant differences between the collaborative and individual groups. We discuss these findings regarding any opportunities and challenges that arise in online collaboration between students for cognitive and emotional engagement when handling conflicting information about COVID-19.

Monitoring your weight-loss process online: prior weight-loss experiences, online social support and subsequent weight-loss success (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Online weight-loss communities (OWCs) have been becoming increasingly popular for weight management, which enable individuals to monitor (i.e. self-monitoring) and discuss (i.e. social interaction) their weight-loss experiences. However, there has been limited understanding of the role of individuals’ prior weight-loss experiences in subsequent weight-loss success, especially in online settings. OBJECTIVE To address the significant literature gap, this study investigates the relationship between prior weight-loss experiences (success or failure), online social support and subsequent weight-loss success in the contexts of OWCs based on self-determination theory. METHODS The data of 1650 users from one popular OWC is collected using a python crawler procedure, including individuals’ characteristics (e.g. gender, age, friends, posts, membership duration) and weight-loss diary information. Two logit regression models are deployed to estimate the effects of prior weight-loss experiences and social support on subsequent weight-loss success, as well as the moderation effect of social support. RESULTS The results reveal that prior successful weight-loss experiences are positively related to subsequent weight-loss success (β=0.376,p<0.01) while the relationship between prior failed weight-loss experiences and subsequent weight-loss success is negative (β=-0.225,p<0.05). Meanwhile, online social support can not only influence positively subsequent weight-loss success directly (β=0.441,p<0.01) but also undermine the negative effect of prior failed weight-loss experiences (β=0.025,p<). Nevertheless, social support has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between prior successful weight-loss experiences and subsequent weight-loss success (β=0.104,p>0.1). CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to literature on prior experiences and online social support in the context of OWCs, and provides valuable insights for OWCs’ designs to improve users’ engagement and their weight-loss success.

Balancing online pharmacy services for patient adherence: a stimulus-organism-response perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify patient experience unique to online pharmacy services (OPS) based on the characteristics of OPS (i.e. interactivity and virtuality) and to reveal how patient experience is derived from OPS and thereby enhances patient adherence from both online social support and patient experience perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThe Stimulus-Organism-Response framework was used to conceptualize this study; both primary and secondary data for 296 validated participants were collected on a real OPS platform. A structural equation modeling approach combined with partial least squares was employed for the quantitative analysis.FindingsSocial presence and user engagement can be identified as patient experience in the OPS context; online emotional support has a stronger association with patients' social presence than it does with patients' user engagement; patients' social presence has a stronger association with their medication adherence than it does with diet adherence, while patients' user engagement has a stronger association with their diet adherence than it does with medication adherence; patients' medication knowledge negatively moderates the relationship between user engagement and diet adherence.Originality/valueThis study identifies patient experience in accordance with unique characteristics of OPS, and it reveals the nuanced underlying mechanisms by which online social support is associated with patient experience and by which patients' experience is associated with their adherence. This study enriches the literature on patient adherence, patient experience and OPS, providing insights for healthcare providers, OPS designers and policymakers.