Online health communities, contributions to caregivers and resilience of older adults

Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to investigate the potential benefits of online health communities (OHCs) for informal caregivers by conducting a systematic literature review. Secondly, to identify the relationship between the potential benefits of OHCs and resilience factors of older adults. Performing a thematic analysis, we identified the potential benefits of OHCs for informal caregivers of older adults, including two salient themes: (a) caregivers sharing and receiving social support and (b) self and moral empowerment of caregivers. Then, we uncovered how these potential benefits can support resilience of older adults. Our findings show that sharing and receiving of social support by informal caregivers, and self and moral empowerment of informal caregivers in OHCs, can support four resilience factors among older adults, including self‐care, independence, altruism and external connections. This review enables a better understanding of OHCs and Gerontology, and our outcomes also challenge the way healthcare and aged‐care service providers view caregivers and older adults. Furthermore, the identified gap and opportunities would provide avenues for further research in OHCs.

Impact of sense of coherence, resilience and loneliness on quality of life amongst older adults in long‐term care: A correlational study using the salutogenic model

“…According to Haugan et al (2020Haugan et al ( , & 2021, the quality of the nurse-patient interaction can significantly improve older adults' physical, emotional, social, functional, spiritual well-being, joy-of-life and self-transcendence in the LTC. In addition, Kamalpour et al (2021) proposed the use of an online community to provide the necessary social support, network and resources to engage older adults meaningfully and reduce their loneliness.…”

“…The role of spousal relationship was corroborated based on the salutogenic model. According to Kamalpour et al (2021), many older adults might find themselves serving as informal caregivers for their spouses or friends and losing access to environmental resources due to aging‐related issues. However, participation in caregiving does enhance the resilience of older adults by providing them with environmental resources through engagement with the online health community.…”

“…In fact, the more resources an older adult is able to gain, the more resilient the individual is likely to be (Resnick, 2014; Wister et al, 2016). Kamalpour et al (2021) recommended establishing online health communities to support the caregivers, improve resilience in older adults’ and empower them, enable aged‐care providers to engage their clients and consider new healthcare delivery models.…”

What older adults do in online communities when they co-create and co-destruct value

“…This would be helpful to better understand what other practices may take place in OCs, and how interactions of older adults with caregivers and professionals can affect their resilience. In line with Kamalpour et al (2021), future research should investigate how participation in OCs can support resilience of the caregivers in their caregiving journey. Our findings further showed some older adults engage in disparaging practices such as misconduct.…”

Influence of Health Social Networks on Healthcare: A Systematic Literature Review

“…smoking) often turn to HSNs to connect with people with similar conditions to share information that could support the self-management of their diseases (Frost & Massagli, 2008;Griffiths et al, 2015;Vassilev et al, 2014;Ventola, 2014). Family members and caregivers also use HSNs to access information that could empower them to support the persons they are caring for (Kamalpour et al, 2021). However, healthcare professionals are generally reluctant to use HSN platforms for direct patient care (Ventola, 2014), though recent studies have shown that some are beginning to use HSNs to communicate with their patients, answer their questions and provide general education on public health issues (Moorhead et al, 2013;Zhou et al, 2018).…”