Emotional or informational? Understanding cancer patients’ multifaceted help-seeking behaviors in online health communities

IF 4.9 2区医学 Q1 PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

Social Science & Medicine Pub Date : 2025-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117902

Xiandong Feng , Yinhuan Hu , Holger Pfaff , Sha Liu , Hui Wang , Yangfan Wang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Although the widespread use of online health communities (OHCs) has transformed how cancer patients interact and acquire information, there is limited understanding of their specific help-seeking behaviors in these digital environments. Based on stress and coping theory, this study develops a framework to examine the patterns and determinants of cancer patients’ help-seeking behaviors in OHCs. We collected 19,224 help-seeking posts from a leading cancer-focused OHC in China between January 2016 and July 2023. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining content analysis through Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for behavioral pattern identification and beta regression for determinant analysis. The results revealed two primary categories of help-seeking behaviors - emotional and informational - which comprised six distinct topics: daily emotional regulation, community social support, medical options, treatment processes, medical results interpretation, and medication management and effects. Female patients exhibited stronger tendencies toward emotional help-seeking, while male patients favored informational help-seeking. Both increasing age and time since diagnosis were positively associated with emotional help-seeking but negatively correlated with informational help-seeking. Moreover, different cancer types showed distinct patterns in their help-seeking behaviors. This study advances the theoretical framework of help-seeking behaviors in an online context and provides evidence-based recommendations for optimizing OHCs to meet the diverse needs of cancer patients.

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来源期刊

Social Science & Medicine PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH-

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

5.60%

发文量

762

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Social Science & Medicine provides an international and interdisciplinary forum for the dissemination of social science research on health. We publish original research articles (both empirical and theoretical), reviews, position papers and commentaries on health issues, to inform current research, policy and practice in all areas of common interest to social scientists, health practitioners, and policy makers. The journal publishes material relevant to any aspect of health from a wide range of social science disciplines (anthropology, economics, epidemiology, geography, policy, psychology, and sociology), and material relevant to the social sciences from any of the professions concerned with physical and mental health, health care, clinical practice, and health policy and organization. We encourage material which is of general interest to an international readership.