How Does Interactive Social Support in Healthcare Communities Promote Customer Well-Being

DOI

10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.236How to use a DOI?

Keywords

online; quality of life; social support; healthcare

Abstract

This study developed the kinds of social support patients actually obtain on Internet. With data collected from published posts in online health care communities, the authors identify three kinds of support (emotional support, informational support, and companionship) that underlie online social support in health care. Theoretically, the authors constructed a conceptual model of the relationship between online social support and individual’s quality of life. The model illustrated that informational, emotional and companionship support affect patients’ quality of life in descending order of importance. In particular, online social support as a whole should be encouraged and received by users in online health care communities as they tend to be associated with higher patient’s quality of life.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Tang Yao
AU  - Qi Zhang
AU  - Qi Qiu
AU  - Qiuying Zheng
PY  - 2013/10
DA  - 2013/10
TI  - How Does Interactive Social Support in Healthcare Communities Promote Customer Well-Being
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Academic Workshop on Social Science
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1022
EP  - 1026
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.236
DO  - 10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.236
ID  - Yao2013/10
ER  -