Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 5, 2020
Open Peer Review Period: May 5, 2020 - Jun 18, 2020
Date Accepted: Jul 22, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Health Goal Attainment of Chronic Diseases in Social Media-Enabled Patient Communities: An Approach of Survival Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Activities directed at attaining health goals are a major part of the daily lives of those fighting chronic diseases. A proliferating population of chronic disease patients are participating in online communities where they can exchange health information and pursue health goals with others virtually.
Objective:
In this study, we are interested in understanding the effectiveness of participation in social media-enabled online patient communities on health goal attainment. In particular, we studied the antecedents of health goal attainment in terms of social support and self-reflection in online patient communities.
Methods:
This dataset consists of online health management activities of 392 patients across 13 support groups, e.g., high blood pressure, diabetes, breast cancer, collected from a leading online patient community. Content analysis was used to code the social interactions among patients on the online platform. Cox regression for survival analysis was used to model the hazard ratio of health goal attainment.
Results:
The analysis indicates online emotional support can increase patients’ chances to achieve their goals while informational support does not appear to be effective. In addition, health-related self-reflection increases online patients’ likelihood of goal attainment, but leisure-oriented self-reflection reduces the likelihood.
Conclusions:
Social media-enabled online platforms assist health goal management via both social interaction and personal discipline. This study extends the understanding of online patient communities by including both social and cognitive factors in one study. In particular, the research advocates that health goals relating to chronic conditions can be better managed when patients use online health communities strategically. Clinical Trial: N/A
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