Website Sharing in Online Health Communities: A Descriptive Analysis

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Online Health Communities
• Information Science

Background:

• Online health communities are increasingly used by individuals seeking health information.
• Users share experiences and website links, highlighting the need to understand sharing behaviors.
• Analyzing website sharing can improve patient support and information dissemination in these platforms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify types and quality of websites shared in online health communities.
• To investigate who shares websites and how sharing varies across communities.
• To understand the contexts and motivations behind website sharing by patients.

Main Methods:

• Extracted 25,448 URLs from 10 WebMD online health communities using regular expressions.
• Assessed information quality by counting trust codes (e.g., accreditation, author institutions).
• Analyzed 387 posts from selected threads to understand sharing contexts and motivations.

Main Results:

• The majority of shared websites were .com (59.16%) and WebMD internal (23.2%).
• High-posting members and moderators shared more websites with trust codes.
• Members shared websites for information dissemination, evidence, and social support.

Conclusions:

• Online health communities serve as vital health information resources for patients and caregivers.
• Findings offer insights into patient information-sharing activities.
• Results assist healthcare providers, informaticians, and developers in enhancing patient decision-making.