Who talks? The social psychology of illness support groups.
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.
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01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that members of online self-help groups receive benefits that go beyond what face-to-face (f2f) groups can offer, such as access to others with similar concerns, exposure to others' self-disclosures and the opportunity to help others as elements of their therapeutic value.
Abstract: Publisher Summary Many of the findings regarding the value of Internet self-help groups agree with results from studies of real-life self-help groups. Access to others with similar concerns, exposure to others' self-disclosures and the opportunity to help others all operate in online self-help groups as elements of their therapeutic value. Existing research survey data, combined with anecdotal observations and case reports, indicate that members of online self-help groups receive benefits that go beyond what face-to-face (f2f) groups can offer. A vast number of such groups exist only online, devoted to topics for which there is no f2f self-help. There is a higher level of self-disclosure online than in comparable f2f groups. Text-based social support relationships formed in virtual communities are very real and valuable to the people involved. They often result in an effort to meet f2f. Internet self-help groups are one of the means that people in need can use to make a therapeutic connection with others, but for every advantage that is known to exist about these text-based therapeutic forums, there is at least one disadvantage.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an e-health intervention that used social media to friendsource peer support for Alzheimer's disease (AD) caregivers was proposed, which is a variant of crowdsourcing.
Abstract: This research piloted an e-health intervention that used social media to friendsource peer support for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) caregivers. Friendsourcing is a variant of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourci...
21 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...Davison, Pennebaker, and Dickerson (2000) also found that overcoming logistical barriers to accessibility and availability of support was associated with participation in receiving support online....
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01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: A critical review of research on the information needs and informationseeking behavior of women with breast cancer is presented and the importance of user-centered, contextual studies as a means of understanding the continually changing information requirements of a diverse target audience is affirm.
Abstract: Breast cancer features prominently in the medical expenditures of all western societies and remains the greatest cancer killer amongst women. Information regarding the medical, societal and psycho-social aspects of the disease are vital for informed decision making, patient ‘empowerment’, compliance and improved outcomes. Yet the literature consistently reports dissatisfaction with both the content and delivery mechanisms of breast cancer information. This paper presents a critical review of research on the information needs and informationseeking behavior of women with breast cancer. Results from the Australian Breast Cancer Information Needs and Seeking (BCINS) study are reported and affirm the importance of user-centered, contextual studies as a means of understanding the continually changing information requirements of a diverse target audience. The end-product of the BCINS study, an online ‘intelligent portal’, is described. Through the provision of quality, ‘tailored’ breast cancer resources, the portal is intended to meet the differentiated information needs of the breast cancer community.
21 citations
Proceedings Article•
05 Jul 2011
TL;DR: Preliminary findings show that information on health and relationships is most commonly sought, and work confirms that newsgroups provide a means of expression for those who feel they have no local support available to them.
Abstract: This paper presents an ongoing investigation into how people use the Internet in an attempt to escape situations of information poverty. We consider posts from a variety of newsgroups which indicate that individuals feel they have nowhere else to go to find information or support for concerns crucial to their everyday lives. A qualitative content analysis is performed to examine three main issues: what information needs people posting to these groups have, who they hide these needs from in the ‘real world’, and why they feel they can only express their needs online. Preliminary findings show that information on health and relationships is most commonly sought. Needs are most often hidden from parents and family, and the main reasons for seeking information online are a lack of understanding and the fact that people simply don’t know where else to go. Our work confirms that newsgroups provide a means of expression for those who feel they have no local support available to them.
21 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...Davison, Pennebaker, and Dickerson (2000) found that illness groups were popular with people suffering from debilitating and disfiguring conditions, perhaps because of the practical problems of physically meeting up as well as enabling anonymity....
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...The Internet provides both anonymity and a source of information and support which may not be available elsewhere (e.g. McKenna and Bargh 1998, Davison, Pennebaker, and Dickerson 2000), making it a prime candidate to help people escape their situation of information poverty....
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TL;DR: Middle-aged and older adults with multiple sclerosis according to their use of support groups and identified factors associated with perceived need were compared to raise questions for professionals involved in developing and implementing multiple sclerosis support groups.
Abstract: This study compared middle-aged and older adults with multiple sclerosis (MS, N = 1,275) according to their use of support groups and identified factors associated with perceived need. Over 64.6% (n = 824) of participants had attended a MS support group meeting at least once. Individuals who had never attended a group were more likely to reside in urban or suburban communities, report lower symptom interference, and fewer activity limitations. Women, individuals without a helper, and people with greater symptom interference were more likely to perceive a need for a support group. Findings raise questions for professionals involved in developing and implementing multiple sclerosis support groups.
20 citations
Cites background or result from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...Surprisingly, gender was not associated with support group use despite previous findings that men are generally less likely to participate in these types of programs (Davison et al., 2000; Kessler & Zhao, 1997)....
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...Women were more likely than men to report unmet need, which may reflect women’s greater affiliation for these types of groups (Davison et al., 2000; Kessler & Zhao, 1997)....
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..., 2004; VandenBos, 2007), although others use these terms interchangeably (Davison et al., 2000)....
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...…to provide education and information that helps people cope with their disease through modeling and social persuasion, facilitate social interactions and networking, and encourage group advocacy (Davison et al., 2000; Gottlieb, 2000; Peters et al., 2003; Uccelli et al., 2004; VandenBos, 2007)....
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...Support groups are sometimes distinguished from self-help groups by virtue of their leadership (professional vs. peer; Kessler & Zhao, 1997; Uccelli et al., 2004; VandenBos, 2007), although others use these terms interchangeably (Davison et al., 2000)....
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References
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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 1970TL;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....
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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
3,765 citations