Background

The effectiveness of online health communities (OHCs) for improving outcomes for health care consumers, health professionals, and health services has already been well investigated. However, research on determinants of OHC users’ activity levels, what is associated with attrition or attraction to these communities, and the impacts of initial posts is limited.

Objectives

We sought to explore topic exchanges in OHCs and determine how users’ initial posts and community reactions to them are associated with their subsequent activity levels. We also aimed to extend the theory of Attraction-Selection-Attrition for Online Communities (OCASA) to this area.

Methods

We examined exchanges in a major Australian OHC for cancer patients, analyzing about 2500 messages posted over 2009–18. We developed a novel annotation scheme to examine new members’ initial posts and the community’s reactions to them.

Results

The annotation scheme includes five themes: informational support provision, emotional support provision, requests for help, self-reflection & disclosures, and conversational cues. Initial conversations were associated with future activity levels in terms of active posting versus non-active engagement in the community. We found that most OHC members disclosed personal reflections to bond with the community, and many actively posted to the community solely to provide informational and emotional support to others.

Conclusion

Our work extends OCASA theory to bond-based contexts, presents a new annotation scheme for OHC support topics, and makes an important contribution to knowledge about the relationship between users’ activity levels and their initial posts. The findings help managers and owners understand how members use OHCs and how to encourage active participation. They also suggest how to attract new members and minimize attrition among existing members.

中文翻译：

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在线健康社区中的吸引力，选择和损耗：初始对话及其与后续活动级别的关联。

背景

在线医疗社区（OHC）对于改善医疗保健消费者，医疗专业人员和医疗服务的效果的有效性已经得到了充分的调查。但是，有关OHC用户活动水平的决定因素，与这些社区的流失或吸引力有关以及最初职位的影响的研究有限。

目标

我们试图探索OHC中的主题交流，并确定用户的初始帖子和社区对其的反应如何与其后续活动水平相关联。我们还旨在将在线社区的吸引力，选择，消耗理论（OCASA）扩展到这一领域。

方法

我们分析了澳大利亚主要OHC中针对癌症患者的交流情况，分析了2009-18年度发布的大约2500条消息。我们开发了一种新颖的注释方案，以检查新成员的初始帖子以及社区对他们的反应。

结果

注释方案包括五个主题：提供信息支持，提供情感支持，寻求帮助，自我反省和公开以及对话线索。初始对话与社区中的主动发布与非主动参与有关，与未来的活动水平相关。我们发现，大多数OHC成员公开了自己的个人想法，以与社区建立联系，并且许多人积极地发布到社区中，仅仅是为了向其他人提供信息和情感支持。

结论

我们的工作将OCASA理论扩展到基于键的上下文，为OHC支持主题提出了一种新的注释方案，并对有关用户活动水平与其初始职位之间的关系的知识做出了重要贡献。调查结果有助于经理和所有者了解成员如何使用OHC以及如何鼓励积极参与。他们还建议了如何吸引新成员并最大程度地减少现有成员的消耗。