Arq Bras Cardiol. 2013 Aug;101(2):e39-45. doi: 10.5935/abc.20130161.
The number of patients who use the internet in search for information that might improve their health conditions has increased. Among them, those looking for virtual environments to share experiences, doubts, opinions, and emotions, and to foster relationships aimed at giving and getting support stand out. Therefore, there is an increasing need to assess how those environments can affect the patients' health. This study was aimed at identifying scientific studies on the proliferation and impact of virtual communities, known as health social networks or online support groups,directed to cardiovascular diseases, which might be useful to patients with certain conditions, providing them with information and emotional support. A systematic review of the literature was conducted with articles published from 2007 to 2012, related to cardiovascular diseases and collected from the following databases: PubMed; Association for Computing Machinery(ACM); and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Four articles meeting the inclusion criteria were selected. The results were interesting and relevant from the health viewpoint, identifying therapeutic benefits, such as provision of emotional support, greater compliance to treatment, and information sharing on diseases and on life experiences.
使用互联网搜索可能改善健康状况的信息的患者人数有所增加。其中，那些寻找虚拟环境以分享经验、疑虑、意见和情感，并促进旨在提供和获得支持的关系的患者尤为突出。因此，越来越需要评估这些环境如何影响患者的健康。本研究旨在确定关于虚拟社区（称为健康社交网络或在线支持小组）的科学研究，这些社区针对心血管疾病，可能对某些情况下的患者有用，为他们提供信息和情感支持。对 2007 年至 2012 年发表的与心血管疾病相关的文章进行了系统的文献回顾，这些文章来自以下数据库：PubMed；美国计算机协会（ACM）；和电气和电子工程师协会（IEEE）。选择了符合纳入标准的四篇文章。从健康的角度来看，这些结果是有趣和相关的，确定了治疗益处，如提供情感支持、提高治疗依从性，以及分享关于疾病和生活经历的信息。
