Support-Seeking Strategies and Social Support Provided in Chinese Online Health Communities Related to COVID-19

A multidimensional comparative study of help-seeking messages on Weibo under different stages of COVID-19 pandemic in China

Objective

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people posted help-seeking messages on Weibo, a mainstream social media in China, to solve practical problems. As viruses, policies, and perceptions have all changed, help-seeking behavior on Weibo has been shown to evolve in this paper.

Methods

We compare and analyze the help-seeking messages from three dimensions: content categories, time distribution, and retweeting influencing factors. First, we crawled the help-seeking messages from Weibo, and successively used CNN and xlm-roberta-large models for text classification to analyze the changes of help-seeking messages in different stages from the content categories dimension. Subsequently, we studied the time distribution of help-seeking messages and calculated the time lag using TLCC algorithm. Finally, we analyze the changes of the retweeting influencing factors of help-seeking messages in different stages by negative binomial regression.

Results

(1) Help-seekers in different periods have different emphasis on content. (2) There is a significant correlation between new daily help-seeking messages and new confirmed cases in the middle stage (1/1/2022-5/20/2022), with a 16-day time lag, but there is no correlation in the latter stage (12/10/2022-2/25/2023). (3) In all the periods, pictures or videos, and the length of the text have a significant positive effect on the number of retweets of help-seeking messages, but other factors do not have exactly the same effect on the retweeting volume.

Conclusion

This paper demonstrates the evolution of help-seeking messages during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in three dimensions: content categories, time distribution, and retweeting influencing factors, which are worthy of reference for decision-makers and help-seekers, as well as provide thinking for subsequent studies.

Differences in family functioning before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: an observational study in Peruvian families

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on family relationships, as several families have lost family members due to COVID-19 pandemic and become physically and emotionally estranged due to lockdown measures and critically economic periods. Our study contrasted two hypotheses: (1) family functioning changed notably before and after the COVID-19 pandemic initiation in terms of cohesion, flexibility, communication and satisfaction; (2) balanced families have a greater capacity to strictly comply with quarantine (i.e., social confinement), compared to unbalanced families. We performed an observational study comparing family functioning between two independent groups, evaluated before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru. A total of 7,980 participants were included in the study. For the first hypothesis, we found that, during the pandemic, families became more balanced in terms of cohesion (adjusted before-during mean difference or β1 = 1.4; 95% CI [1.0-1.7]) and flexibility (β2 = 2.0; 95% CI [1.6-2.4]), and families were less disengaged (β3 = -1.9; 95% CI [-2.3 to -1.5]) and chaotic (β4 = -2.9; 95% CI [-3.3 to -2.4]). Regarding the second hypothesis, we confirmed that families with balanced cohesion (adjusted prevalence ratio or aPR = 1.16; 95% CI [1.12-1.19) and flexibility (aPR = 1.23; 95% CI [1.18-1.27]) allowed greater compliance with quarantine restrictions; while disengaged (aPR = 0.91; 95% CI [0.88-0.93]) and chaotic families (aPR = 0.89; 95% CI [0.87-0.92]) were more likely to partially comply or not comply with the quarantine. Finally, family communication (aPR = 1.17; 95% CI [1.11-1.24]) and satisfaction (aPR = 1.18; 95% CI [1.11-1.25]) also played a role in favouring quarantine compliance. This new evidence enlightens the family systems theory while informing future interventions for improving compliance with quarantine measures in the context of social confinement.

Acquiring Social Support in an Online HPV Support Group: Exploring the Roles of Threat and Efficacy

Social media have become crucial communication channels for human papilloma virus (HPV) patients to seek and receive social support that can benefit their physical and psychological health. To promote supportive communication on online social platforms, we analyzed 96,543 messages, including 7,407 posts and 89,136 comments, concerning social support on Baidu HPV Forum, one of China's largest online HPV support groups. We examined factors (i.e., threat and efficacy) in posts requesting social support associated with the amount of social support received in comments. Results revealed that the majority of social support messages received in comments represented informational support, whereas relatively few comments featured instrumental social support. Beyond that, high-threat, non-efficacy posts requesting social support received a greater amount of informational and emotional support in the comments than other types of posts requesting social support. Theoretical and practical implications of our study are discussed as well.

Factors Affecting Users' Continuous Usage in Online Health Communities: An Integrated Framework of SCT and TPB

BACKGROUND

Online health communities (OHCs) provide a new channel for users to obtain more health-related information and support, playing an important role in alleviating hospital congestion and uneven medical resource distribution, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. An in-depth study of users' continuous usage is of great value for the long-term development of OHCs.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that influence users' continuous usage in online health communities based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and social cognitive theory (SCT).

METHODS

Data from 480 users with experience in online health communities were collected through a questionnaire survey, and structural equations were applied to verify the model hypotheses empirically.

RESULTS

Self-efficacy and controllability have significant effects on users' continuous intention; attitude has a significant relationship with continuous intention; social norms have a positive effect on continuous intention. Moreover, the relationship between continuous intention and behavior is positive. Self-efficacy and outcome expectations have significant positive associations with continuous usage. Finally, system quality, information quality, and social interaction ties have significant and positive relationships to continuous usage.

CONCLUSION

To improve the level of user's continuous usage, online health service providers can improve the quality of the community by organizing the website's page layout, navigation menus, and site elements to ensure users quickly search and find what they want meanwhile try to change people's cognition gradually, in addition, decision and policymakers should provide more favorable policies to stimulate and help provider in building and managing strategic plans for sustaining a thriving online community. A supportive climate in society through public service advertisements and others for the sake of OHCs is necessary.

LIMITATIONS

(1) This study collected data through a cross-sectional survey. Thus, it lacked the process of capturing the changes in participants' attitudes toward all variables. (2) The environmental factors in SCT theory need to be more comprehensive, containing online factors without offline factors. (3) The dates were obtained from China, which neglects the different cultural content.

Online health community for change: Analysis of self-disclosure and social networks of users with depression

Background

A key research question with theoretical and practical implications is to investigate the various conditions by which social network sites (SNS) may either enhance or interfere with mental well-being, given the omnipresence of SNS and their dual effects on well-being.

Method/process

We study SNS’ effects on well-being by accounting for users’ personal (i.e., self-disclosure) and situational (i.e., social networks) attributes, using a mixed design of content analysis and social network analysis.

Result/conclusion

We compare users’ within-person changes in self-disclosure and social networks in two phases (over half a year), drawing on Weibo Depression SuperTalk, an online community for depression, and find: ① Several network attributes strengthen social support, including network connectivity, global efficiency, degree centralization, hubs of communities, and reciprocal interactions. ② Users’ self-disclosure attributes reflect positive changes in mental well-being and increased attachment to the community. ③ Correlations exist between users’ topological and self-disclosure attributes. ④ A Poisson regression model extracts self-disclosure attributes that may affect users’ received social support, including the writing length, number of active days, informal words, adverbs, negative emotion words, biological process words, and first-person singular forms.

Innovation

We combine social network analysis with content analysis, highlighting the need to understand SNS’ effects on well-being by accounting for users’ self-disclosure (content) and communication partners (social networks).

Implication/contribution

Authentic user data helps to avoid recall bias commonly found in self-reported data. A longitudinal within-person analysis of SNS’ effects on well-being is helpful for policymakers in public health intervention, community managers for group organizations, and users in online community engagement.

Influencing factors of anxiety and depression of discharged COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China

Objectives

This study is intended to assess the prevalence of depression and anxiety in individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 and been discharged from hospital (RD hereafter) in Wuhan, China, and to explore the factors associated with these mental disorders.

Methods

Participants of this study were the RD who were infected at the beginning of the outbreak from 13 communities in Jianghan District of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China by convenience sampling in mid-2021. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire, the Patient Health Questionnaire, the Short Version of COVID-19 Stigma Scale, the Peace of Mind Scale, the Resilience Style Questionnaire, and the Perceived Social Support Questionnaire were used to collect relevant information of the participants. Descriptive analyses, Pearson correlation analysis, and logistic regression analysis were used to describe and analyze the data and to examine the factors associated with the mental health status of this population.

Results

In total, we recruited 1601 participants from 3059 COVID-19 patients, and 1541 participants completed the questionnaire survey, with a response rate of 96.25%. Finally, 1297 participants met the inclusion and exclusion criteria in this study, of whom 28.8% and 37.9% reported mild to severe levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. Perceived better mental health status during hospitalization, higher frequency of alcohol use per week, peace of mind, higher education level, and resilience were negatively associated with anxiety, while stigma and history of psychological or emotional counseling before infection was positively associated with anxiety. More severe clinical classification of COVID-19 and stigma (AOR = 1.057, P<0.001) were both positively associated with depression, while perceived better mental health status during hospitalization (AOR = 0.564, P<0.001), higher frequency of alcohol use per week (AOR = 0.462, P = 0.004), peace of mind (AOR = 0.857, P<0.001), and social support (AOR = 0.972, P = 0.034) were negatively associated with depression.

Conclusions

Tailored interventions on reducing stigma, enhancing mindfulness and social support should be taken into account to alleviate anxiety and depression among RD.