Online Health Communities the Impact of Social Support on the Health State of People with Chronic Illness

摘要

People with chronic illnesses are engaged in the lifelong management of their disease and with this management comes the need for emotional support, informational support, and companionship from others, particularly those who have the same disease and can relate to their situation. More often people are seeking this social support through online health communities. The concern is that online health communities may not have a positive impact on the health condition since anyone can be providing information and the information provided may not be valid. We utilize an objective measure of the health condition to determine the impact social support, given and received, in an online health community has on the user's health condition over time.