For several medical treatments there is considerable scientific and medical uncertainty about the relative benefits and risks they imply. The literature indicates social support as an important factor in health uncertainty management and the concept has gained considerable interest in the areas of behavioral medicine and health psychology research. Despite the growing importance of online health communities (OHCs), there is still a dearth of research evaluating the interactive and reciprocal nature of social support exchange that may occur in the online environment and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no single study has specifically focused on online support interactions in contexts characterized by treatment uncertainty. This study aims to generate knowledge on how OHCs can serve as platforms of social support for groups of individuals that are subject to treatment uncertainty. To attain this objective, we build on social capital theory and adopt a netnographic and a dual case-study approach to analyze peer-to-peer social support interactions in OHCs where users face treatment uncertainty. Findings suggest that OHCs can be a place for extending the social support networks of people facing treatment uncertainty as multiple typologies of peer-to-peer social support are remotely exchanged in the virtual communities. However, we also found that the information available in these forums can be subject to imprudent processes of selection by forum participants who try to conform online discussion to suit the forums’ shared and accepted narratives highlighting the benefits of these uncertain treatments, while minimizing the respective risks. From a theoretical perspective, this study has implications for health uncertainty management literature, by highlighting collective processes of uncertainty management not captured in well-established theories of uncertainty management, which are mostly focused on individual and interpersonal processes of uncertainty management in dyad relationships, and not group dynamics. From a managerial practice perspective, the study provides insights for public health, private and not-for-profit health promotion institutions and managers of the OHCs, that can be used to program community-based social marketing interventions intended to enhance the quality and increase the volume of social support available in OHCs where users may face treatment uncertainty.

对于几种药物治疗，其隐含的相对利益和风险存在相当大的科学和医学不确定性。文献表明，社会支持是健康不确定性管理中的重要因素，这一概念已在行为医学和健康心理学研究领域引起了极大的兴趣。尽管在线健康社区（OHC）的重要性日益提高，但仍然缺乏评估可能在在线环境中发生的社会支持交流的互动性和互惠性的研究，并且就作者所知，还没有一项研究能够进行。特别关注在治疗不确定性情况下的在线支持互动。这项研究旨在收集有关OHC如何作为治疗不确定性个体群体的社会支持平台的知识。为了实现这一目标，我们建立在社会资本理论的基础上，采用网络学和双重案例研究方法来分析用户面临治疗不确定性的OHC中的点对点社会支持互动。研究结果表明，OHC可以成为扩展面临治疗不确定性的人们的社会支持网络的场所，因为在虚拟社区中远程交换了多种点对点社会支持的类型。然而，我们还发现，这些论坛中提供的信息可能会受到论坛参与者不谨慎的选择过程的影响，他们会尝试进行在线讨论，以适应论坛共享并接受的叙述，从而突出了这些不确定性治疗的好处，同时最大程度地降低了各自的风险。从理论上讲，本研究通过强调未建立的不确定性管理理论中未涵盖的不确定性管理的集体过程，从而对健康不确定性管理文献产生了影响，这些不确定性管理主要集中于两性关系中的不确定性管理的个人和人际过程，以及而不是团体动态。从管理实践的角度来看，该研究为公共卫生提供了见解，