Using content and network analysis to understand the social support exchange patterns and user behaviors of an online smoking cessation intervention program

Informational support and nurturant support are two basic types of social support offered in online health communities. This study identifies types of social support in the QuitStop forum and brings insights to exchange patterns of social support and user behaviors with content analysis and social network analysis. Motivated by user information behavior, this study defines two patterns to describe social support exchange: initiated support exchange and invited support exchange. It is found that users with a longer quitting time tend to actively give initiated support, and recent quitters with a shorter abstinent time are likely to seek and receive invited support. This study also finds that support givers of informational support quit longer ago than support givers of nurturant support, and support receivers of informational support quit more recently than support receivers of nurturant support. Usually, informational support is offered by users at late quit stages to users at early quit stages. Nurturant support is also exchanged among users within the same quit stage. These findings help us understand how health consumers are supporting each other and reveal new capabilities of online intervention programs that can be designed to offer social support in a timely and effective manner.

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