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Social Support in a Diabetes Online Community: Mixed Methods Content Analysis by Cidila Da Moura Semedo; Peter A Bath; Ziqi Zhang is a Medicine article available to read on EtoBox.

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## Background Patients with diabetes may experience different needs according to their diabetes stage. These needs may be met via online health communities in which individuals seek health-related information and exchange different types of social support. Understanding the social support categories that may be more important for different diabetes stages may help diabetes online communities (DOCs) provide more tailored support to web-based users. ## Objective This study aimed to explore and quantify the categorical patterns of social support observed in a DOC, taking into consideration users’ different diabetes stages, including prediabetes, type 2 diabetes (T2D), T2D with insulin treatment, and T2D remission. ## Methods Data were collected from one of the largest DOCs in Europe: Diabetes.co.uk. Drawing on a mixed methods content analysis, a qualitative content analysis was conducted to explore what social support categories could be identified in users’ posts. A total of 1841 posts were coded by 5 human annotators according to a modified version of the Social Support Behavior Code, including 7 different social support categories: achievement, congratulations, network support, see

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Author

Cidila Da Moura Semedo; Peter A Bath; Ziqi Zhang

Publisher

JMIR Publications Inc.

Published

2023

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)