Expanding the Walls of the Health Care Encounter: Support and Outcomes for Patients Online

Abstract

This paper assesses the relationship between patient–health care provider (HCP) interaction and health behaviors. In total, 109 Native American patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus were enrolled in a Web-based diabetes monitoring system. The system tracks patient–HCP interaction, and in total 924 personal messages were exchanged. These 924 messages contained 6,411 message units that were content analyzed using a nine-category scheme. Patient blood glucose monitoring was found to be related to the frequency of phatic communication, informational social support, and tangible social support messages, as well as messages containing references to personal contact. Finally, person-centered messages proved to be the single best predictor of patient involvement with the telemedicine system (as measured by the number of times the patient logged into the system).