Factors of collective psychological empowerment of active users in the online health community med.over.net

Abstract

(F = 8,65, df = 8, p < 0,001) in z njim lahko pojasnimo 23,4% variabilnosti občutka kolektivnega opolnomočenja. Občutek pripadnosti spletni skupnosti (β = 0,279, p < 0,001), vključenost v organizacijske aktivnosti skupnosti (0,194, 0,001) in zaznana participacija spletne skupnosti v širšem okolju (0,157, 0,02)

Collective Empowerment in Online Health Communities: Scale Development and Empirical Validation

“…This has also been emphasized by the social identity theory, which argues that identification with community as an important dimension of a sense of virtual community importantly leads to (effective) coordination, collaboration, collective action of members, and thereby, their collective empowerment [37]. The association between a sense of virtual community and collective empowerment in OHCs has been demonstrated by the studies by and [27,30]. These studies demonstrated that a sense of virtual community plays a crucial role in building collective empowerment in online communities as it helps users to develop responsibility for the community and a willingness to participate in supportive efforts.…”

“…Conversely, the ideas of developing psychological capacity for initiation or support of (potential) changes in social circumstances that affect patients’ health conditions and the accessibility and quality of health services or health care system in general [20,26] are much less present in discussions of patient empowerment. This is considered by the concept of collective empowerment, which pertains to the individuals’ beliefs that personal health-related issues can be (effectively) solved in collaboration with others and by enacting influence in wider social structures collectively [20,27].…”

“…The concept of collective empowerment has been studied in community psychology research [35,36], social identity theoretical perspectives [37,38] and, to some extent, implicitly investigated through concepts of patient engagement and activation in health studies [25,39]. However, studies of OHCs have investigated collective empowerment to a very limited extent [6,15,27,30,40-42] and, empirically, they offer no measurement instruments for assessing collective empowerment in OHCs. Hitherto, collective empowerment scales have been developed in community psychology research [36,43,44] and online community studies [6,30], but they have not been properly adapted to health-related contexts on the Web and empirically validated for the OHC setting.…”

“…This dimension addresses individuals’ recognition of the need for collaboration and coordination among larger groups—for example, community members—and for strengthening interpersonal relationships to exert an impact on the wider social circumstances that affect their lives and place them in a disadvantaged position [19]. OHCs have been shown to offer an important platform for the development of collective awareness and engagement that unite their members in a belief that personal health-related issues can be effectively solved through collaboration with others and by enacting collective influence in wider social structures [27,46].…”

“…On the basis of the theoretical and empirical evidence reported in previous studies, we identified 3 concepts that scholars emphasize to be correlated with collective empowerment (in OHCs) [19,27,30,41,48]: sense of (virtual) community , involvement in community organization, and intensity of participation (in OHCs) .…”