@inbook{56dbe0a38c1f4dabb7e53d053b46d44e,
title = "What is going on in digital health communities? A typology of support exchanges for cancer patients",
abstract = "The use of online health communities (OHCs) for informational and emotional social support seeking is on the rise. However, still little is known about type of exchanges in these communities. In this chapter, we draw on and contribute to the digital health literature by critically studying online support exchanges in a major Australia OHC for cancer patients. We examine about 2,500 messages from 2009 to 2018 and develop a novel annotation scheme of support topics that comprise of five overarching themes: informational support provision, emotional support provision, request for help, self-reflection and disclosures, and conversational cues. Findings revealed that members of OHCs overwhelmingly disclose personal reflections to bond with the community and many members actively post to the community solely to provide informational and emotional support to others. We present implications of our finding to the practice as well as to the theory and discuss potentials for future studies.",
author = "Babak Abedin and David Milne and Shadi Erfani",
year = "2020",
doi = "10.1049/PBHE024E_ch21",
language = "English",
isbn = "9781839530470",
series = "Healthcare Technologies Series",
publisher = "The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)",
pages = "343--355",
editor = "Ray, {Pradeep Kumar} and Naoki Nakashima and Ashir Ahmed and Soong-Chul Ro and Yasuhiro Soshino",
booktitle = "Mobile technologies for delivering healthcare in remote, rural or developing regions",
}