1. Observing Social Support in an Online Diabetes Community
Robert C. Wright, Moloud Shahbazi, Vagelis Hristidis, Kevin Esterling, and Megan L. Robbins
Introduction
Interventions with peer support lead to better health outcomes (Piette et al., 2013)
Internet-based support interventions for type 2 diabetes increase perceived social support (Barrera et al., 2002)
Use of diabetes-specific Online Social Networks (OSNs) can increase peer support (Armstrong & Powell, 2009)
Method
Scraped diabeticconnect.com for publicly available posts from January 2008 – May 2014
1,000 random posts were selected from over 300,000
Support coding:
Emotional – emotional expression
Informational - advice
Structural – inclusion or acceptance into the network
4 human coders
Post counted as coded if ≥3 agreement
735/1000 coded posts (Kappa = )
Results
1,000 random posts
528 unique users
421 reported gender (67.7% Female)
504 reported date joined
Range: 3/11/ /10/2014
Median: 5/2/2010
735 were reliably coded for support
Support Frequencies (n = 735)
Informational
61.6%
Structural
1.0%
Emotional
24.5%
Seeking: 190 Posts
7.4%
1.1%
0.5% *
Informational
56.8%
Structural
1.6%
Emotional
31.0%
Providing: 477 Posts
Research Questions:
What are the properties of a diabetes-specific OSN?
Text
“Likes”
Friends, Followers
How do patients seek and provide support in the OSN?
Emotional, Informational, and Structural
Seeking and Providing
9.2%
1.5%
0.2%
Friends: t(300) = 2.59; p = .01, d = .31, 95% CI [ ]
References:
Armstrong, N., & Powell, J. (2009). Patient perspectives on health advice posted on Internet discussion boards: a qualitative study. Health Expectations, 12(3),
Barrera Jr, M., Glasgow, R. E., Mckay, H. G., Boles, S. M., & Feil, E. G. (2002). Do Internet-based support interventions change perceptions of social support?: An experimental trial of approaches for supporting diabetes self- management. American journal of community psychology, 30(5),
Piette, J. D., Resnicow, K., Choi, H., & Heisler, M. (2013). A diabetes peer support intervention that improved glycemic control: mediators and moderators of intervention effectiveness. Chronic illness, 9(4),
Future Directions
Use machine learning to automate coding
Track support over time
Map OSN usage with health outcomes
Human coders
Build classifiers
Computer codes all
Contact: