Exploring the Role of Social Media in Chronic Care Management

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines how social media can support communities of patients with chronic illness and their care givers. This study is a qualitative case study and is informed by grounded theory. Sociomateriality is adopted as a theoretical lens to understand and explain the key findings. Our findings suggest that there is a dynamic relation between the contrary roles that social media in chronic care management and this is not only attributed to the functionalities of these technologies but to the attributes of patients and their states of health. We were also able to observe how these technologies are bounded up with human activities in the ways that separating them is not possible. What we learnt from our findings is that the ways patients and carers use of social media can change their perceptions about their conditions, and influence how they understand and approach the management process.

Online Communities as a Driver for Patient Empowerment: Systematic Review

“…In 2 of these studies, the community was presented as a built-in community through social media, for example, Facebook [ 40 , 47 ]. There were established communities that did not specify the platform, merely that they enabled peer support (3/33, 9%) [ 46 , 50 , 54 ], while others presented well-established online communities for a specific diagnosis (11/33, 33%) [ 37 - 39 , 41 - 43 , 52 , 54 - 57 ]. Additionally, the established online communities were based on patients’ initiatives, both regarding creating (6/33, 18%) [ 40 , 43 - 45 , 52 , 57 ], maintaining and moderating (5/33, 15%) [ 40 , 43 - 45 , 52 ], or using the community (21/33, 64%) [ 37 - 57 ].…”

“…The papers that represented either established or undefined online communities (28/33, 85%) did not discuss or analyze involvement of health care professionals. If health care professionals were mentioned, it was merely to explain why patients used the community (24/33, 73%) [ 37 , 39 , 40 , 43 - 62 , 64 ], if patients chose to share experiences of use (5/33, 15%) [ 45 , 48 , 49 , 58 , 59 ], or professionals contributed to content in various forms (5/33, 15%), but it was not elaborated on how or if this content had an effect on patients [ 45 , 49 , 53 , 54 , 56 ].…”

“…Of 33 papers, 22 (70%) focused on studying patient empowerment explicitly ( Table 1 ). The focus referred to either a deductive (12/33, 36%) [ 37 - 39 , 47 , 50 - 52 , 55 , 57 , 61 , 65 , 69 ] or inductive approach (13/33, 39%) [ 40 , 43 , 46 - 49 , 54 , 57 - 60 , 66 , 67 ], or a mix thereof. Papers with an inductive approach often revealed patient empowerment as conclusions of thematic analysis or through discussion of findings.…”

“…For established and unspecified online communities, patient enablement was in 25 out of 33 papers (75%) analyzed as the prerequisite that an online community had for the patient to become engaged and activated in managing diagnosis [ 37 - 52 , 54 , 55 , 57 - 60 , 62 - 64 ]. The prerequisites were often related to patients’ confidence in their own abilities to improve their health conditions or relationships with health care professionals.…”

Online Communities as a Driver for Patient Empowerment: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…In 2 of these studies, the community was presented as a built-in community through social media, for example, Facebook [40,47]. There were established communities that did not specify the platform, merely that they enabled peer support (3/33, 9%) [46,50,54], while others presented well-established online communities for a specific diagnosis (11/33, 33%) [37][38][39][41][42][43]52,[54][55][56][57].…”