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Journal ArticleDOI

Who talks? The social psychology of illness support groups.

01 Jan 2000-American Psychologist (American Psychological Association)-Vol. 55, Iss: 2, pp 205-217
TL;DR: Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as stigmatizing and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease, and implications for social comparison theory and its applications in health care are discussed.
Abstract: More Americans try to change their health behaviors through self-help than through all other forms of professionally designed programs. Mutual support groups, involving little or no cost to participants, have a powerful effect on mental and physical health, yet little is known about patterns of support group participation in health care. What kinds of illness experiences prompt patients to seek each other's company? In an effort to observe social comparison processes with real-world relevance, support group participation was measured for 20 disease categories in 4 metropolitan areas (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas) and on 2 on-line forums. Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as stigmatizing (e.g., AIDS, alcoholism, breast and prostate cancer) and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease. The authors discuss implications for social comparison theory and its applications in health care.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This EBMH Notebook considers the internet from the perspective of the mental health specialist, examining its impact in two domains: (a) information resources and (b) treatment provision.
Abstract: The internet is one of the fastest growing technologies in the world. The number of web users worldwide is estimated at 513 million,1 with approximately 100 million adult users in the United States2 and 25 million in the United Kingdom.3 There is evidence that seeking health information is one of the most common reasons for using the internet.4 About 100,000 websites dedicated to health information have been identified.5 As in other areas of medicine and clinical practice, the internet and its associated technologies have begun to change the nature of mental health practice. Moreover, because the internet facilitates access to information and resources by patients and clinicians, there is an increasingly “mental health literate” community who may seek certain types of web-based mental health interventions. Self help is of increasing importance in Western countries. For instance, about 4% of the American population may undertake self help for medical conditions in any 12 month period.6 The internet provides fee and non-fee-based professional therapy, counselling and self help packages directly to the community. In this EBMH Notebook, we update a previous paper on the expanding role of the internet in mental health practice.7 We consider the internet from the perspective of the mental health specialist, examining its impact in two domains: (a) information resources and (b) treatment provision. We discuss the scope of information and treatment resources for the practitioner and provide examples of resources. We also discuss the advantages and major obstacles to using these technologies. Finally, we speculate about the ways in which the internet will continue to change clinical practice and likely future trends. ### Resources available for practitioners There are a number of well known sites which provide starting points to find mental health resources on the internet (see table). Professional resources include immediate access to …

33 citations

Dissertation
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: Creswell et al. as mentioned in this paper found that older people's peer-run groups have both a manifest and a latent function in promoting their participants' feelings of wellbeing regardless of the activity offered.
Abstract: The recent increase in the number and proportion of older people worldwide has prompted a search for new policies and practices to help them remain active, happy and healthy participants in their community. Although older people’s wellbeing is a well-researched topic, there has been little or no research into where, when and how they can most easily find opportunities to observe, learn and practise strategies that lead to feelings of wellbeing. This study explores a prevalent but under-researched area of older people’s activities that is likely to be an important contributor to the search: their participation in groups run by and for their peers. The study’s aims are to identify the common characteristics of different groups run by and for older people and the ways in which they contribute to their participants’ feelings of wellbeing. It appears to be the first study to examine the range and variety of older people’s peer-run groups throughout a local government area, supplementing previous research that focused on one type of group. The chosen methodology, mixed methods, uses an explanatory sequential research design (Creswell, 2015): a survey sent to a range of older people’s groups in a designated area, followed by semi-structured interviews with current participants in nine of the groups and with relevant service providers. Data were analysed by an iterative thematic process integrating the qualitative and quantitative data. Theories used in interpretation of the data include Lifespan Theory (Baltes, 1987), Atchley’s Continuity Theory (1989) and Laslett’s concept of four lifestages (1989, 1991), particularly his concept of a third age as an era of active independence after leaving paid work. The study finds that older people’s peer-run groups have both a manifest and a latent function in promoting their participants’ feelings of wellbeing. The manifest function is to fulfil their participants’ need to restore or replace life satisfactions that have changed or diminished in their transition to older age. Interviewees interpreted the satisfaction of these needs as an expression of their personal concepts of ‘wellbeing’. Furthermore, all the groups were found to play a role in their participants’ feelings of wellbeing regardless of the activity offered. The groups’ latent function is to help satisfy their participants’ dual needs for independence and support. Older people’s peer-run groups are found to be both a resource of experiential knowledge and an arena where strategies for successful ageing can be observed, learned and practised in an atmosphere of sharing and reciprocal support. The study then identifies the characteristics that enable older people’s peer-run groups to satisfy their participants’ needs and interests. Three enabling factors are found within the groups: voluntarism: the free choice of participants to choose which group to join and the extent of their involvement; the lifestage of the participants, with the predominance of one generation cohort, the third age; and self-governance of the groups by their members. The fourth enabling factor is outside assistance from other organisations in domains where the groups are under-resourced, such as the provision of suitable and affordable places to meet. The study concludes that, in this time of rapid demographic and social change, the groups run by older people for their peers are a manifestation of the new and growing lifestage cohort: neither older paid workers nor dependent elderly but the third age. The peer-run groups act as a resource and a focus of this emergent generation cohort’s unique contribution to their own wellbeing and to the wider community. These findings on the third age cohort and their groups have important implications for the development of policies and practices to improve older people’s wellbeing, by recognising their potential for contributing in their own way to society in the twenty-first century.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A conceptualization of rehabilitation recognizing a final common pathway of functional disability and suffering is proposed, and both systematic and treatment-specific aspects at the core of a veteran-centered holistic approach are discussed.
Abstract: UNLABELLED Throughout the history of war, exposure to combat has been associated with clusters of physical and psychological symptoms labeled in various ways, from "hysteria" to "shell shock" in World War I to "polytrauma" in Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF). OBJECTIVE To describe the historical conceptualizations of combat injury and the ways they are relevant to developing current rehabilitation strategies, discuss the symptom complex presented by OEF/OIF veterans, and describe key elements and principles of holistic, integrated care for post-acute OEF/OIF veterans. CONCLUSIONS A conceptualization of rehabilitation recognizing a final common pathway of functional disability and suffering is proposed, and both systematic and treatment-specific aspects at the core of a veteran-centered holistic approach are discussed.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The assumption is that the Internet can and should be leveraged to bridge the chasm between basic science, clinical trials, and public health to decrease the prevalence of behavioral risk factors for cancer.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the Internet as a tool for enhancing behavior and lifestyle changes to reduce the burden of cancer at a population level. The premise of this paper is that the Internet can and should be leveraged to bridge the chasm between basic science, clinical trials, and public health. Our focus is specifically on the opportunity to disseminate effective behavioral science interventions via the Internet in order to decrease the prevalence of behavioral risk factors for cancer. The examples herein are primarily drawn from tobacco use to illustrate issues that can be applied more generally to other behavioral risk factors for cancer. Four areas will be addressed: (1) the scientific basis and rationale for delivering lifestyle behavior change interventions via the Internet; (2) the need to determine the quality of Internet interventions; (3) methodological considerations in conducting evaluations of Internet interventions; and (4) recommendations for a transdisciplinary approach to Internet intervention development and evaluation.

33 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...Pennebaker et al have used innovative techniques derived from psycholinguistics and other disciplines to conduct studies of Internet and real-world support groups for 20 different diseases [64]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role microblogs play by exploring the types of messages following the death of a public figure, Michael Jackson, “the King of Pop”, is investigated by exploring how categories not normally associated with grieving are expressed on Twitter.
Abstract: Purpose – Grieving resulting from the death of a loved one or someone familiar is a painful process and individuals invariably seek support to help them through this difficult period. In this study, the paper investigates the role microblogs play by exploring the types of messages following the death of a public figure, Michael Jackson, “the King of Pop”.Design/methodology/approach – Content analysis was conducted using 50,000 tweets harvested from Twitter from the first 12 days after Michael Jackson's death. A coding instrument characterizing a set of categories that users posted about Jackson's death was inductively constructed, and then applied to the entire dataset of tweets.Findings – About 50 per cent of tweets fell into categories commonly associated with expressions of emotions or thoughts due to death. However, as the single largest category, Twitter was used primarily as a platform for sharing news and other information. Surprisingly, categories not normally associated with grieving, such as spr...

32 citations


Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."

  • ...The second reason is that online platforms allow a greater degree of anonymity than offline communication (Davison et al., 2000)....

    [...]

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors pointed out that there is a strong functional tie between opinions and abilities in humans and that the ability evaluation of an individual can be expressed as a comparison of the performance of a particular ability with other abilities.
Abstract: Hypothesis I: There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilities. While opinions and abilities may, at first glance, seem to be quite different things, there is a close functional tie between them. They act together in the manner in which they affect behavior. A person’s cognition (his opinions and beliefs) about the situation in which he exists and his appraisals of what he is capable of doing (his evaluation of his abilities) will together have bearing on his behavior. The holding of incorrect opinions and/or inaccurate appraisals of one’s abilities can be punishing or even fatal in many situations. It is necessary, before we proceed, to clarify the distinction between opinions and evaluations of abilities since at first glance it may seem that one’s evaluation of one’s own ability is an opinion about it. Abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the particular ability. The clarity of the manifestation or performance can vary from instances where there is no clear ordering criterion of the ability to instances where the performance which reflects the ability can be clearly ordered. In the former case, the evaluation of the ability does function like other opinions which are not directly testable in “objective reality’. For example, a person’s evaluation of his ability to write poetry will depend to a large extent on the opinions which others have of his ability to write poetry. In cases where the criterion is unambiguous and can be clearly ordered, this furnishes an objective reality for the evaluation of one’s ability so that it depends less on the opinions of other persons and depends more on actual comparison of one’s performance with the performance of others. Thus, if a person evaluates his running ability, he will do so by comparing his time to run some distance with the times that other persons have taken. In the following pages, when we talk about evaluating an ability, we shall mean specifically the evaluation of that ability in situations where the performance is unambiguous and is known. Most situations in real life will, of course, present situations which are a mixture of opinion and ability evaluation. In a previous article (7) the author posited the existence of a drive to determine whether or not one’s opinions were “correct”. We are here stating that this same drive also produces behavior in people oriented toward obtaining an accurate appraisal of their abilities. The behavioral implication of the existence of such a drive is that we would expect to observe behaviour on the part of persons which enables them to ascertain whether or not their opinions are correct and also behavior which enables them accurately to evaluate their abilities. It is consequently

16,927 citations

Book
01 Jan 1878
TL;DR: The Red River of the North basin of the Philippines was considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1939 Census Atlas of the United Philippines as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: 1 Includes drainage basin of Red River of the North, not a part of any accession, but in the past sometimes considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase. i Includes Baker, Canton, Enderbury, Rowland, Jarvis, Johnston, and Midway Islands; and also certain other outlying islands (21 square miles). 3 Commonwealth of the Philippines, Commission of the Census; 1939 Census, Census Atlas of the Philippines. Source: Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

10,650 citations

Book
01 Jan 1970
TL;DR: Yalom as mentioned in this paper described the course of therapy from both the patient's and the therapist's viewpoint in Encounter Groups: First Facts (1973) and Every Day gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy (1974).
Abstract: This book first appeared in 1970 and has gone into two further editions, one in 1975 and this one in 1985. Yalom is also the author of Existential Psychotherapy (1980), In-patient Group Psychotherapy (1983), the co-author with Lieberman of Encounter Groups: First Facts (1973) and with Elkin of Every Day Gets a Little Closer: A Twice-Told Therapy (1974) (which recounts the course of therapy from the patient's and the therapist's viewpoint). The present book is the central work of the set and seems to me the most substantial. It is also one of the most readable of his works because of its straightforward style and the liberal use of clinical examples.

4,235 citations


"Who talks? The social psychology of..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In a similar vein, Yalom (1995) has asserted that self-help groups offer a unique venue for growth, social experimentation, and change....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness.
Abstract: The Internet could change the lives of average citizens as much as did the telephone in the early part of the 20th century and television in the 1950s and 1960s. Researchers and social critics are debating whether the Internet is improving or harming participation in community life and social relationships. This research examined the social and psychological impact of the Internet on 169 people in 73 households during their first 1 to 2 years on-line. We used longitudinal data to examine the effects of the Internet on social involvement and psychological well-being. In this sample, the Internet was used extensively for communication. Nonetheless, greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in participants' communication with family members in the household, declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their depression and loneliness. These findings have implications for research, for public policy and for the design of technology.

4,091 citations