scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
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
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 2014
TL;DR: An analytical framework to identify self‐disclosing health information with unusual messages on web forums by leveraging advanced text‐mining techniques is developed and the experimental results show that the classification accuracy increased significantly when using features selected by the information gain technique.
Abstract: Understanding specific patterns or knowledge of self-disclosing health information could support public health surveillance and healthcare. This study aimed to develop an analytical framework to identify self-disclosing health information with unusual messages on web forums by leveraging advanced text-mining techniques. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed analytical framework, we conducted an experimental study on 2 major human immunodeficiency virus HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS forums in Taiwan. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy increased significantly up to 83.83% when using features selected by the information gain technique. The results also show the importance of adopting domain-specific features in analyzing unusual messages on web forums. This study has practical implications for the prevention and support of HIV/AIDS healthcare. For example, public health agencies can re-allocate resources and deliver services to people who need help via social media sites. In addition, individuals can also join a social media site to get better suggestions and support from each other.

12 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: Several interdisciplinary studies were conducted in this framework: discourse analysis was carried out on online discussions focusing on social support, observers attended support group meetings attended by family caregivers, and interviews were conducted with caregivers.
Abstract: People are turning increasingly to the Internet to find support and share their experience and feelings when they are undergoing hardships such as medical problems. The aim of our ongoing research project is to design innovative online social support services. In order to pave the way for this complex undertaking, several interdisciplinary studies were conducted in this framework: discourse analysis was carried out on online discussions focusing on social support, observers attended support group meetings attended by family caregivers, and interviews were conducted with these caregivers. The application of our findings to our design project is discussed.

12 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study suggests that online social support groups can be effective in challenging stigma by encouraging people affected by methamphetamine to connect with each other and talk about their struggles, which represents an important step toward successful rehabilitation.
Abstract: Background: Methamphetamine is an illicit and addictive psychostimulant that remains to be a significant cause of economic burden in Australia. Social media is increasingly being used by nongovernment organizations and health services to encourage the growth of social support networks among people with health-related issues. Several studies have investigated the utility of social media in providing social support to groups of people with health-related issues. However, limited research exists that explores how people who have been directly or indirectly affected by methamphetamine use social media for social support. Objective: This study aimed to determine the types of social support being sought and provided by people affected by methamphetamine when interacting with others on a Facebook page. Methods: A total of 14,777 posts were collected from a Facebook page and transferred into an Excel document for content analysis. The posts were manually coded into categories of social support using an adapted version of Cutrona and Suhr’s Social Support Behavior Code. Posts could be coded into more than one category. Saturation was reached at 2000 posts, which were used to draw inferences. Results: Emotional support was the most offered support type, with 42.05% (841/2000) of posts providing this form of support. This is followed by esteem support, which was provided in 40.40% (808/2000) of posts. Overall, 24.20% (484/2000) of posts offered informational support. Network support and tangible support were the least offered support types, with 2.25% (45/2000) and 1.70% (34/2000) of posts offering these types of support, respectively. Conclusions: This study suggests that online social support groups can be effective in challenging stigma by encouraging people affected by methamphetamine to connect with each other and talk about their struggles. This in turn represents an important step toward successful rehabilitation.

12 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the benefits following disclosure through face-to-face versus instant messaging and found that participants in the disclosure groups experienced a greater reduction in physiological stress symptoms than the non-disclosure groups, although self-report of negative affect improved significantly more for those that did not disclose.
Abstract: Disclosure following stressful events produces physical and psychological benefits. This study was designed to compare the benefits following disclosure through face-to-face versus instant messaging. Eighty female undergraduates were asked to view a dramatized rape scene. Following this viewing, participants in the disclosure groups were asked to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the video with trained female confederates through face-to-face or instant messaging interactions. The nondisclosure groups discussed a neutral topic through the same two modes of communication. Positive and negative affect, pulse rate, and galvanic skin response were assessed at baseline, following the acute stressor, and following the conversation. The disclosure groups experienced a greater reduction in physiological stress symptoms than the nondisclosure groups, although self-report of negative affect improved significantly more for those that did not disclose. The face-to-face disclosure group showed greater physiolo...

12 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A psycho-educational and social support process group for youth ages 18 to 25 living with HIV, called Powerful Youth, has been successful with regard to consistent youth participation and reported satisfaction as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Given the significant benefits of group-level interventions and the ongoing need for support services, education, and secondary prevention for HIV-positive youth, staff in the Risk Reduction Program within the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles implemented a psychoeducational and social support process group for youth ages 18 to 25 living with HIV. This group, called Powerful Youth, has been successful with regard to consistent youth participation and reported satisfaction. This article provides a description of Powerful Youth and also describes the subsequent evaluative focus group that was conducted (utilizing the nominal group technique) to examine youth-identified factors that facilitate as well as hinder youth participation and satisfaction in this HIV support group. Results of this focus group regarding specific therapeutic factors (i.e., group cohesion, universality, imparting information, and instillation of hope), perceived group benefits, group challenges, barriers...

12 citations

References
More filters
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