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Peer Support in Online Women's Health Communities: Mixed Methods Formative Analysis of Reddit Discourse
Kimia Tuz Zaman1,2, Wordh Ul Hasan3, Nova Ahmed4
1Department of Computer Science, North Dakota State University, Quentin Burdick Building Room 258, 1320 Albrecht Boulevard, Fargo, ND, 58105, United States, 1 701-231-9662.
JMIR Formative Research
|May 4, 2026
Summary
Online women's health forums offer vital peer support, addressing clinical dismissal and cultural needs. A three-stage model of Affirmation, Scaffolding, and Bridging can guide future digital health systems.
Area of Science:
- Digital Health
- Sociotechnical Systems
- Online Communities
Background:
- Women's health issues like PCOS and endometriosis are often stigmatized and dismissed in clinical settings.
- Individuals seek peer support in online communities due to clinical dismissal and the need for culturally specific advice.
- Existing digital platforms lack the dynamic features to address complex user support needs.
Purpose of the Study:
- Deconstruct online women's health support practices.
- Provide a basis for designing more responsive digital health systems.
- Identify unmet user needs and effective peer-support patterns.
Main Methods:
- Large-scale, mixed-methods analysis of 4995 posts and 460,317 comments from 5 women's health subreddits.
- Computational analysis including topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and emotion classification.
- Qualitative thematic analysis of culturally situated discussions, segmented by COVID-19 periods.
Main Results:
- "Pain & Doctor Visits" was the most prevalent, emotionally negative topic, linked to clinical dismissal.
- The COVID-19 pandemic shifted discussions inward toward somatic concerns, increasing fear and sadness alongside community trust.
- A three-stage support model emerged: Affirmation, Information Scaffolding, and Intercultural Bridging.
Conclusions:
- Online health forums serve as critical infrastructures, compensating for gaps in formal healthcare.
- The "Affirmation-Scaffolding-Bridging" model offers a framework for designing future digital health interventions.
- New platforms should be emotionally aware, culturally responsive, and adaptive to user needs and crises.
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