Information Support or Emotional Support? Social Support in Online Health Information Seeking among Chinese Older Adults

• Published in: Healthcare (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 17; p. 1790
• Main Authors: Zhu, Xiaowen, Li, Chang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 07.09.2024
• Subjects: Adults; Cardiovascular disease; Community; Demographics; Digital literacy; Empowerment; Health education; Health literacy; Information retrieval; Internet resources; Natural language processing; older adult healthcare; Older people; online health information seeking; online platforms; Peers; Population; social network analysis; Social networks; Social support
• ISSN: 2227-9032; 2227-9032
• DOI: 10.3390/healthcare12171790

Online Health Information Seeking (OHIS) serves as an alternative form of social capital that can help older adults alleviate offline medical-related stress. This study collected and analyzed user interaction data from Patient-to-Doctor and Patient-to-Peer platforms and compared the roles of social support between them. Significant differences were identified in the dimensions of social support (information, emotional, and companion) on the Patient-to-Peer platforms compared with Patient-to-Doctor platforms (p < 0.05). The overall and core–core network density values for social support on Patient-to-Peer platforms were higher than those on Patient-to-Doctor platforms. Patient-to-Doctor interactions focused on information support, displaying a more centralized and efficient network with structural holes pertaining to treatment effects. By contrast, Patient-to-Peer interactions provided more emotional support, with a dispersed and redundant network containing structural holes related to individual information. Companion support was found to be weaker on both platforms. Additionally, digital literacy, surrogate seeking, and altruistic information significantly explained the variances between the two platforms (p < 0.01), with surrogate seeking playing a crucial role. These findings enhance our understanding of OHIS disparities among older adults and their surrogates, offering valuable insights for developing effective support systems and regulatory frameworks for health information platforms.