Health Blogging and Social Support: A 3-Year Panel Study

Abstract

The reported study explored the implications of informal computer-mediated social support for the well-being of individuals coping with illness over the course of 3 years. A panel study was conducted in which respondents—bloggers writing about their experiences living with a health condition—reported on their perceptions of social support and well-being during 2010 and again during 2013. Among respondents who completed both questionnaires (n = 49), increases in support availability from family and friends were related to improvements in bloggers' health self-efficacy as well as improvements in bloggers' loneliness, particularly among those who also experienced increased support availability from blog readers. Increased blog reader support availability was associated with improvements in bloggers' health-related uncertainty. Among respondents who completed the initial questionnaire (N = 121), a survival analysis showed that neither support available from family and friends nor support from blog readers predicted continued health blogging over the 3-year period.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the bloggers who served as respondents and made this project possible. The views, opinions, and findings contained in this article are solely our own and should not be construed as an official Fors Marsh Group position unless so designated by other documentation.