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Seeking and receiving social support on Facebook for surgery
Matthew A Davis1,2, Denise L Anthony2,3, Scott D Pauls4
1University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Social Science & Medicine (1982)
|March 11, 2015
Summary
Social networking sites like Facebook offer health support. Conversations mentioning surgery received more responses when using family or prayer-related language, indicating online social support effectiveness.
Area of Science:
- Digital Health
- Social Sciences
- Health Communication
Background:
- Social support is crucial for health outcomes.
- Social networking sites (SNS) are increasingly used for seeking support.
- Limited research exists on SNS-based health support conversations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate social support dynamics on Facebook for health-related matters.
- To identify predictors of social support in Facebook conversations about surgery.
- To analyze the impact of specific language used in posts on receiving support.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 3,899 Facebook users discussing surgery over six months.
- Utilized latent semantic analysis to categorize post themes (family, immediacy, prayer).
- Employed generalized linear mixed models to assess factors influencing response rates.
Main Results:
- Surgery-related posts received an average of 5.7 responses.
- Use of 'family' and 'prayer' keywords significantly increased response counts (RR 1.40 and 2.07, respectively).
- Few user characteristics, beyond marital status and income, predicted response levels.
Conclusions:
- Facebook can be a platform for receiving social support during health events like surgery.
- The language employed in initial posts, particularly terms related to family and prayer, strongly influences the amount of social support received.
- Findings highlight the importance of linguistic cues in online health support interactions.
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