The Channel Matters: Self-disclosure, Reciprocity and Social Support in Online Cancer Support Groups

Self-disclosure, perceived social support, and reproductive concerns among young male cancer patients in China: A mediating model analysis

Objective

Many young male cancer patients experience reproductive concerns. Self-disclosure might be able to improve patients' perceived social support and reproductive concerns. Nevertheless, these relationships have not yet been confirmed among young male cancer patients. This study aims to investigate the level of reproductive concerns and to identify the mediating role of perceived social support between self-disclosure and reproductive concerns among young male cancer patients in China by developing a structural model.

Methods

This study was a quantitative, cross-sectional design. We used the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement guidelines to report this study. A total of 369 young male cancer survivors were recruited by convenience sampling from two tertiary hospitals in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China. Data were collected using a "general data questionnaire", "distress disclosure index" (DDI), "perceived social support scale" (PSSS), and "reproductive concerns after cancer-male" (RCAC-M) via the WeChat mini program "Questionnaire Star" and paper questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analyses, and structural equation models were adopted to analyze the data.

Results

Reproductive concerns were at moderate levels and negatively associated with self-disclosure (r = -0.619, P < 0.01) and perceived social support (r = -0.599, P < 0.01). Self-disclosure indirectly influenced reproductive concerns (-0.328∼-0.159, P < 0.001) through perceived social support.

Conclusions

Self-disclosure and perceived social support are closely associated with reproductive concerns in young male cancer patients, and perceived social support is a mediator between self-disclosure and reproductive concerns. Healthcare providers could reduce reproductive concerns by enhancing self-disclosure and improving perceived social support.

Trial registration

This study was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov on June 13, 2023 (NCT05914181).

Motivations for sharing personal information and self-disclosure in public and private Facebook groups of mentally ill people

Purpose

This study explores the motivations for sharing personal information and self-disclosure by mentally ill people in public and private Facebook groups. The purpose of the self-disclosure comparison between public and private groups is to understand how mentally ill people use different kinds of online communication channels in order to advance their goals and needs concerning their illness.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was carried out using questionnaires distributed in Facebook groups for people with mental illnesses. A total of 123 full and valid questionnaires were received. Statistical analysis was performed on the data.

Findings

Findings revealed that there are no significant differences between public and private groups concerning motivations for self-disclosure and that both types of groups create a safe and supportive place for mentally ill people. However, findings suggest that participants in public groups tend to display higher social involvement than those who participate in private groups.

Originality/value

This is a path breaking study on the entire subject of discourse of people with mental illnesses in private Facebook groups and its importance is derived from this. The study clarified and emphasized the importance of the sense of belonging to a community. Moreover, findings encourage people with mental illnesses to make use of social media channels to meet their social and personal needs.

Psychological Well-Being of Left-Behind Children in China: Text Mining of the Social Media Website Zhihu

China’s migrant population has significantly contributed to its economic growth; however, the impact on the well-being of left-behind children (LBC) has become a serious public health problem. Text mining is an effective tool for identifying people’s mental state, and is therefore beneficial in exploring the psychological mindset of LBC. Traditional data collection methods, which use questionnaires and standardized scales, are limited by their sample sizes. In this study, we created a computational application to quantitively collect personal narrative texts posted by LBC on Zhihu, which is a Chinese question-and-answer online community website; 1475 personal narrative texts posted by LBC were gathered. We used four types of words, i.e., first-person singular pronouns, negative words, past tense verbs, and death-related words, all of which have been associated with depression and suicidal ideations in the Chinese Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (CLIWC) dictionary. We conducted vocabulary statistics on the personal narrative texts of LBC, and bilateral t-tests, with a control group, to analyze the psychological well-being of LBC. The results showed that the proportion of words related to depression and suicidal ideations in the texts of LBC was significantly higher than in the control group. The differences, with respect to the four word types (i.e., first-person singular pronouns, negative words, past tense verbs, and death-related words), were 5.37, 2.99, 2.65, and 2.00 times, respectively, suggesting that LBC are at a higher risk of depression and suicide than their counterparts. By sorting the texts of LBC, this research also found that child neglect is a main contributing factor to psychological difficulties of LBC. Furthermore, mental health problems and the risk of suicide in vulnerable groups, such as LBC, is a global public health issue, as well as an important research topic in the era of digital public health. Through a linguistic analysis, the results of this study confirmed that the experiences of left-behind children negatively impact their mental health. The present findings suggest that it is vital for the public and nonprofit sectors to establish online suicide prevention and intervention systems to improve the well-being of LBC through digital technology.

Personality, Attitudes, and Behaviors Predicting Perceived Benefit in Online Support Groups for Caregivers: A Mixed-Methods Study (Preprint)

Background

Online support groups (OSGs) are distance-delivered, easily accessible health interventions offering emotional, informational, and experience-based support and companionship or network support for caregivers managing chronic mental and physical health conditions.

Objective

This study aimed to examine the relative contribution of extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, positive attitudes toward OSGs on social networking sites, and typical past OSG use patterns in predicting perceived OSG benefit in an OSG for parents and caregivers of children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Methods

A mixed methods, longitudinal design was used to collect data from 81 parents across Canada. Attitudes toward OSGs and typical OSG use patterns were assessed using the author-developed Attitudes Toward OSGs subscale (eg, “Online support groups are a place to get and give emotional support”) and Past Behaviors in OSGs subscale (eg, “How often would you typically comment on posts?”) administered at baseline—before OSG membership. The personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism were assessed at baseline using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory. Perceived OSG benefit was assessed using the author-developed Perceived OSG Benefit scale (eg, “Overall, did you feel supported by other members in this group?”), administered 2 months after the initiation of OSG membership.

Results

A hierarchical regression analysis found that extraversion was the only variable that significantly predicted perceived OSG benefit (R²=0.125; P<.001).

Conclusions

The key suggestions for improving future OSGs were facilitating more in-depth, customized, and interactive content in OSGs.

The reception of support in peer-to-peer online networks: Network position, support solicitation, and support provision in an online asthma caregivers group

This study applies social network analysis and quantitative content analysis to messages exchanged within an online support forum of caregivers of children with chronic asthma to examine how peer-to-peer network positions and personal communication styles (seeking and providing support) impact the reception of social support. Content analysis is used to determine rates of giving and receiving informational and emotional support. Network analysis assesses levels of individual betweenness and closeness centrality in the online network. Relationships between network positions, solicitation strategies, and the provision and reception of informational and emotional support are examined. Betweenness and closeness centrality are associated with improved informational and emotional support. The provision of informational support is also improved by providing descriptions of personal experience. Practical implications for the design and use of online support platforms are discussed.

Detecting risk level in individuals misusing fentanyl utilizing posts from an online community on Reddit

INTRODUCTION

Opioid misuse is a public health crisis in the US, and misuse of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl have driven the most recent waves of opioid-related deaths. Because those who misuse fentanyl are often a hidden and high-risk group, innovative methods for identifying individuals at risk for fentanyl misuse are needed. Machine learning has been used in the past to investigate discussions surrounding substance use on Reddit, and this study leverages similar techniques to identify risky content from discussions of fentanyl on this platform.

METHODS

A codebook was developed by clinical domain experts with 12 categories indicative of fentanyl misuse risk, and this was used to manually label 391 Reddit posts and comments. Using this data, we built machine learning classification models to identify fentanyl risk.

RESULTS

Our machine learning risk model was able to detect posts or comments labeled as risky by our clinical experts with 76% accuracy and 76% sensitivity. Furthermore, we provide a vocabulary of community-specific, colloquial words for fentanyl and its analogues.

DISCUSSION

This study uses an interdisciplinary approach leveraging machine learning techniques and clinical domain expertise to automatically detect risky discourse, which may elicit and benefit from timely intervention. Moreover, our vocabulary of online terms for fentanyl and its analogues expands our understanding of online "street" nomenclature for opiates. Through an improved understanding of substance misuse risk factors, these findings allow for identification of risk concepts among those misusing fentanyl to inform outreach and intervention strategies tailored to this at-risk group.

Self-disclosure in public and private groups of people with mental illnesses in Facebook

Purpose

The Internet enables various voices and opinions that previously did not participate in the community discourse to express themselves. People with mental illnesses make use of social networks to advance their special needs in varied ways. The study aims to examine the nature of the discourse that takes place in public and private groups of people with mental illnesses.

Design/methodology/approach

The research corpus consisted of the content of 615 messages taken from public and private groups of people with mental illnesses in Facebook. Linguistic parameters (the total number of words, the number of words in the first person) were examined for each message. Two skilled judges classified the messages on a self-disclosure scale to determine the degree of disclosure of personal information, thoughts and emotions.

Findings

The results of the study indicate that the messages published in public groups are longer than the messages in private groups; however, the level of personal disclosure in messages written in private groups is deeper than in messages written in public groups. In addition, the level of self-disclosure in opening posts was found to be greater than the level of self-disclosure in comments.

Practical implications

In the study, the authors focus on the ways people in excluded populations make use of virtual tools to advance both their personal and social needs.

Originality/value

The study is innovative, as it explores the discourse of people with mental illnesses in public and private groups on Facebook.

Understanding user communication around loneliness on online forums

Increasingly, individuals experiencing loneliness are seeking support on online forums-some of which focus specifically on discussions around loneliness (loneliness forums); loneliness may influence how these individuals communicate in other online forums not focused on loneliness (non-loneliness forums). In order to provide effective and appropriate online interventions around loneliness, it is important to understand how users who publish posts in a loneliness forum communicate in the loneliness forum and non-loneliness forums they belong to. In this paper, using language features, the following analyses are conducted: (1) Posts published on an online loneliness forum on Reddit, /r/Lonely are compared to posts (published by the same users and around the same time period) on two Reddit online forums i.e. an advice seeking forum, /r/AskReddit and a forum focused on discussions around depression (depression forum), /r/depression. (2) Interventions related to loneliness may vary depending on if an individual is lonely and depressed or lonely but not depressed; language use differences in posts published in /r/Lonely by the following set of users are identified: (a) users who post in both /r/Lonely and a depression forum and (b) users who post in /r/Lonely but not in the depression forum. The findings from this work gain new insights, for example: (i) /r/Lonely users tend to seek advice/ask questions related to relationships in the advice seeking forum, /r/AskReddit and (ii) users who are members of the loneliness forum but not the depression forum tend to publish posts (on the loneliness forum) on topic themes related to work/job, however, those who are members of the loneliness and depression forums tend to use more words associated with anger, negation, death, and post on topic themes related to affection relative to relationships in their loneliness forum posts. Some of the findings from this work also align with prior work e.g. users who express loneliness in online forums tend to make more reference to self. These findings aid in gaining insights into how users communicate on these forums and their support needs, thereby informing loneliness interventions.

Understanding Communication in an Online Cancer Forum: Content Analysis Study

Background

Cancer affects individuals, their family members, and friends, and increasingly, some of these individuals are turning to online cancer forums to express their thoughts/feelings and seek support such as asking cancer-related questions. The thoughts/feelings expressed and the support needed from these online forums may differ depending on if (1) an individual has or had cancer or (2) an individual is a family member or friend of an individual who has or had cancer; the language used in posts in these forums may reflect these differences.

Objective

Using natural language processing methods, we aim to determine the differences in the support needs and concerns expressed in posts published on an online cancer forum by (1) users who self-declare to have or had cancer compared with (2) users who self-declare to be family members or friends of individuals with or that had cancer.

Methods

Using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), which is a natural language processing algorithm and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), a psycholinguistic dictionary, we analyzed posts published on an online cancer forum with the aim to delineate the language features associated with users in these different groups.

Results

Users who self-declare to have or had cancer were more likely to post about LDA topics related to hospital visits (Cohen d=0.671) and use words associated with LIWC categories related to health (Cohen d=0.635) and anxiety (Cohen d=0.126). By contrast, users who declared to be family members or friends tend to post about LDA topics related to losing a family member (Cohen d=0.702) and LIWC categories focusing on the past (Cohen d=0.465) and death (Cohen d=0.181) were more associated with these users.

Conclusions

Using LDA and LIWC, we show that there are differences in the support needs and concerns expressed in posts published on an online cancer forum by users with cancer compared with family members or friends of those with cancer. Hence, responders to online cancer forums need to be cognizant of these differences in support needs and concerns and tailor their responses based on these findings.

Studying How Individuals Who Express the Feeling of Loneliness in an Online Loneliness Forum Communicate in a Nonloneliness Forum: Observational Study

BACKGROUND

Loneliness is a public health concern, and increasingly, individuals experiencing loneliness are seeking support on online forums, some of which focus on discussions around loneliness (loneliness forums). Some of these individuals may also seek support around loneliness on online forums not related to loneliness or well-being (nonloneliness forums). Hence, to design and implement appropriate and efficient online loneliness interventions, it is important to understand how individuals who express and seek support around loneliness on online loneliness forums communicate in nonloneliness forums; this could provide further insights into the support needs and concerns of these users.

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to explore how users who express the feeling of loneliness and seek support around loneliness on an online loneliness forum communicate in an online nonloneliness forum.

METHODS

A total of 2401 users who expressed loneliness in posts published on a loneliness forum on Reddit and had published posts in a nonloneliness forum were identified. Using latent Dirichlet allocation (a natural language processing algorithm); Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (a psycholinguistic dictionary); and the word score-based language features valence, arousal, and dominance, the language use differences in posts published in the nonloneliness forum by these users compared to a control group of users who did not belong to any loneliness forum on Reddit were determined.

RESULTS

It was found that in posts published in the nonloneliness forum, users who expressed loneliness tend to use more words associated with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count categories on sadness (Cohen d=0.10) and seeking to socialize (Cohen d=0.114), and use words associated with valence (Cohen d=0.364) and dominance (Cohen d=0.117). In addition, they tend to publish posts related to latent Dirichlet allocation topics such as relationships (Cohen d=0.105) and family and friends and mental health (Cohen d=0.10).

CONCLUSIONS

There are clear distinctions in language use in nonloneliness forum posts by users who express loneliness compared to a control group of users. These findings can help with the design and implementation of online interventions around loneliness.