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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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The authors explored what kinds of support were requested and provided in a depression online support group and found that users sought informational support, various types of emotional support and coaching support, and social companionship.
Abstract: Online support groups have shown a strong potential to foster resourceful environments for people living with depression without restrictions of time, space, and stigma. Research has found that users of those groups exchange various types of support. However, due to the scarcity of research, many other aspects of depression online support groups remain inconclusive. In particular, how the support exchange contributes to the everyday lives of users living with depression remains unclear.
To contribute to filing some of the knowledge gaps, the present study explored what kinds of support were requested and provided in a depression online support group. By doing so, this study aimed to examine the roles of the depression online support group in the management of depression.
Mixed methods were employed with a concurrent triangulation strategy. A sample of 980 posts were selected systematically from the support group. Demographic and clinical information of the users who made those posts were recorded. Quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted to examine the types of support being exchanged through those posts. Inter-coder reliability was calculated to ensure the consistency of the coding process.
The results indicate that users sought informational support, various types of emotional support and coaching support, and social companionship. Users not only sought listening ears, but also practical advice to cope with the situations they were going through. The group appeared to serve its users as a place to meet others with similar experience; to manage loneliness; to discuss what they could not discuss elsewhere; to "just vent"; to gain advice from multiple perspectives on an issue that had been magnifying the impact of depression; to share the experience with formal care provision systems; to express immediate support needs; to share useful discoveries, accomplishments, and creative ways to manage depression; and to experience the value of helping others. This study supports the idea that depression online support groups have the strong potential to contribute to the everyday lives of people living with depression in a way that is not available elsewhere and in a way that complement to the overall framework of existing care provision systems.%%%%PhD
10 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...3 Topics Discussed in Depression Online Support Groups: To date, nine studies have provided qualitative and quantitative information about the nature of interactions in online support groups for people living with depression (Alexander, 2002; Alexander et al., 2003; Davidson et al., 2000; Fekete, 2002; Lamerichs & Molder, 2003; Macius, 2005; Muncer et al, 2000a; Salem et al., 1997; Witt, 2000)....
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Dissertation•
01 Sep 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach to solve the problem of homonymity in homophily, and propose a solution to homophotonicity in homology.
Abstract: ................................................................................................................................4 1 CHAPTER
10 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...More unexpectedly, attendance at support groups is not predicted by factors which indicate a predisposition to be a ‘joiner’ such as membership of other groups or friendliness of the participant or high use of other services (Biegel et al., 2004; Davison et al., 2000)....
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...It should be noted, however, that support seeking characteristics of support group members may not reflect those of the wider population (Davison et al., 2000)....
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...335 people may join because of difficulties with interpersonal relations in other social situations rather than because such relations are already a strength (Davison et al., 2000; Deans et al., 1998)....
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...97 nature and presentation of the illness, individual differences of various kinds and cultural norms (Davison et al., 2000)....
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21 Nov 2008
TL;DR: The main finding of the studies was that patients who use online support groups benefit in various ways, however, only a small proportion of Dutch patients participate in these groups.
Abstract: With the availability of the Internet, so rose the opportunity to share concerns and experiences with peers online. In this thesis the meaning of online support groups for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and breast cancer was examined from different perspectives. To this aim, six studies were performed. In study 1 a content analysis was conducted on 1500 messages derived from various discussion groups for the aforementioned conditions. The main aim was to examine if the disadvantages that are mentioned in literature, actually occur. In study 2 a group of participants of various online discussion groups were (qualitatively and quantitatively) questioned about their use of these groups, the perceived advantages and disadvantages and if and how their participation empowers them. In the third study a representative sample of patients, derived from 2 hospitals, were asked to fill out written questionnaires to examine their use of Internet for health-related reasons and their participation in face-to-face and online support groups. The factors that are associated to this were also examined. In study 4 a group of patients with rheumatoid arthritis was qualitatively questioned about reasons for (not) engaging in (online) peer-to-peer support. In the fifth study a survey was sent to all Dutch rheumatologists and oncologists to explore their experiences and attitudes with regard to their patients’ health-related Internet use. Finally, in study 6, 23 webmasters of online support groups were interviewed to explore their reasons for initiating online support groups and the factors that determine the success of these groups. The main finding of our studies was that patients who use online support groups benefit in various ways, however, only a small proportion of Dutch patients participate in these groups.
10 citations
14 Apr 2015
TL;DR: The concept of “therapeutic facilitation” is introduced to describe the role of the online therapist that was developed and further refined in the context of a Web-based, asynchronous psychosocial intervention for couples affected by breast cancer called Couplelinks.
Abstract: Development of psychological interventions delivered via the Internet is a rapidly growing field with the potential to make vital services more accessible. However, there is a corresponding need for careful examination of factors that contribute to effectiveness of Internet-delivered interventions, especially given the observed high dropout rates relative to traditional in-person (IP) interventions. Research has found that the involvement of an online therapist in a Web-based intervention reduces treatment dropout. However, the role of such online therapists is seldom well articulated and varies considerably across programs making it difficult to discern processes that are important for online therapist involvement.In this paper, we introduce the concept of "therapeutic facilitation" to describe the role of the online therapist that was developed and further refined in the context of a Web-based, asynchronous psychosocial intervention for couples affected by breast cancer called Couplelinks. Couplelinks is structured into 6 dyadic learning modules designed to be completed on a weekly basis in consultation with a facilitator through regular, asynchronous, online text-based communication.Principles of therapeutic facilitation derived from a combination of theory underlying the intervention and pilot-testing of the first iteration of the program are described. Case examples to illustrate these principles as well as commonly encountered challenges to online facilitation are presented. Guidelines and principles for therapeutic facilitation hold relevance for professionally delivered online programs more broadly, beyond interventions for couples and cancer.
10 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...There has been a steady increase in the number of Internet-delivered psychological interventions addressing a range of different issues that include chronic medical conditions (see [1,2]), eating disorders [3-5], substance use (see [6] for review), depression and anxiety [7-9], and cancer (eg, [10,11])....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a study focused on the peer support group activities organized in two northern-Finnish places for children with hearing loss and their experiences of it, and the benefits of peer support were: information and coping skills for the children' daily lives; participation in group activities and group discussions strengthened the children's social competence; and empowerment empowered the participants.
Abstract: This study focused on the peer support group activities organized in two northern-Finnish places for children with hearing loss and their experiences of it. This was an ethnographic child research, in which the research participants were 16 (12 girls, 4 boys, aged 7-17 years) northern-Finnish children with hearing loss. The main research data consisted of the researcher’s field notes and diaries, and focus group interviews among the research participants. Additional research data consisted of various questionnaires and background information. Peer support group activities provided children with hearing loss social, functional, cognitive, and emotional peer support. The benefits of peer support were:(1) peer support group activities provided information and coping skills for the children’ daily lives;(2) participation in group activities and group discussions strengthened the children’s social competence; and (2) peer support group activities empowered the participants. The importance of social rel...
10 citations
Cites background from "Who talks? The social psychology of..."
...There are numerous studies on various peer groups for people with various kinds of life situations (see e.g. Davison et al., 2000; Marshall, Parker, Ciarrochi, & Heaven, 2014)....
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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