Purpose

To characterize the experiences of patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) through a qualitative analysis of content shared on Instagram.

Methods

We analyzed Instagram posts from five randomly selected days in February 2020. The hashtag, #ivfcommunity, was selected to identify public posts authored by Instagram’s IVF community members from multiple treatment centers. Text, photos, hashtags, and emojis were collected from 452 included posts and entered into a study-specific database. Using thematic coding, a four-member team initially coded the first day in February. Common themes were agreed upon by all team members, and a preliminary codebook was created for further analysis. The remaining posts were coded by two-member teams who reached a consensus on the multiple themes assigned to each individual post.

Results

Analysis of posts led to the identification of five major themes: documentation of the medical and physical experience of IVF (76.1%), the emotional spectrum (43.1%), social support (49.2%), coping mechanisms (29.9%), and education (receipt, provision) (11.1%).

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that women undergoing IVF often utilize social media to document daily experiences, offer and recognize sources of community support, and provide and receive education regarding their treatments. Given the increased prevalence of mental health conditions, medical providers should explore challenges discussed on online platforms and consider harnessing the supportive nature of online communities to supplement care for IVF patients.

中文翻译：

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虚拟不孕症社区：对 Instagram 上分享的患者体验的定性分析

目的

通过对 Instagram 上共享的内容进行定性分析来描述接受体外受精 (IVF) 患者的经历。

方法

我们分析了 2020 年 2 月随机选择的 5 天的 Instagram 帖子。选择 #ivfcommunity 主题标签来识别由来自多个治疗中心的 Instagram 的 IVF 社区成员撰写的公开帖子。从 452 个包含的帖子中收集文本、照片、主题标签和表情符号，并输入特定研究的数据库。使用主题编码，一个四人团队最初在 2 月的第一天进行了编码。所有团队成员都同意共同的主题，并创建了一个初步的密码本以供进一步分析。其余的帖子由两人团队编码，他们就分配给每个帖子的多个主题达成共识。

结果

对帖子的分析导致确定了五个主要主题：IVF 的医疗和身体经验记录（76.1%）、情感谱（43.1%）、社会支持（49.2%）、应对机制（29.9%）和教育（收据、提供）（11.1%）。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，接受体外受精的女性经常利用社交媒体来记录日常经历、提供和认可社区支持的来源，并提供和接受有关其治疗的教育。鉴于心理健康状况日益普遍，医疗提供者应探索在线平台上讨论的挑战，并考虑利用在线社区的支持性来补充对 IVF 患者的护理。