Promoting Public Engagement in Palliative and End-of-Life Care Discussions on Chinese Social Media: Model Development...

Area of Science:

• Social Media Health Communication
• Palliative and End-of-Life Care (PEoLC) Research
• Public Health Engagement Strategies

Background:

• Cultural taboos surrounding death in China limit public awareness and knowledge of palliative and end-of-life care (PEoLC).
• Social media offers a significant opportunity to bridge this knowledge gap and promote PEoLC discussions.
• Limited public engagement hinders effective PEoLC advocacy and education in China.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify factors influencing public engagement in PEoLC discussions on Chinese social media.
• To develop actionable recommendations for enhancing PEoLC advocacy and education online.
• To understand how content theme, mood, information richness, and source credibility impact engagement.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 30,811 PEoLC-related posts from Weibo, China's largest social media platform.
• Application of the elaboration likelihood model to examine engagement factors.
• Thematic analysis for content themes, sentiment analysis for mood, and negative binomial regression for engagement quantification.

Main Results:

• Individual accounts achieved higher engagement than organizational accounts in PEoLC discussions.
• Posts on PEoLC-related entertainment and controversial social news generated significantly more engagement.
• Negative sentiment generally increased engagement, except in educational PEoLC content, which showed higher engagement with positive sentiment.

Conclusions:

• Organizations struggle to capture public attention for PEoLC on social media, necessitating new strategies.
• Leveraging social media cultural elements like influencers, entertainment, and social news is crucial for effective PEoLC campaigns.
• Findings offer practical guidance for nonprofits and academics to enhance PEoLC awareness and engagement through social media.