School of Business, 130 Meilong Rd., East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
Int J Med Inform. 2018 Mar;111:172-181. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.12.019. Epub 2018 Jan 9.
With the growing concern about health issues and the emergence of online communities based on user-generated content (UGC), more and more people are participating in online health communities (OHCs) to exchange opinions and health information. This paper aims to examine whether and how male and female users behave differently in OHCs. Using data from a leading diabetes community in China (Tianmijiayuan), we incorporate three different techniques: topic modeling analysis, sentiment analysis and friendship network analysis to investigate gender differences in chronic online health communities. The results indicated that (1) Male users' posting content was usually more professional and included more medical terms. Comparatively speaking, female users were more inclined to seek emotional support in the health communities. (2) Female users expressed more negative emotions than male users did, especially anxiety and sadness. (3) In addition, male users were more centered and influential in the friendship network than were women. Through these analyses, our research revealed the behavioral characteristics and needs for different gender users in online health communities. Gaining a deeper understanding of gender differences in OHCs can serve as guidance to better meet the information needs, emotional needs and relationship needs of male and female patients.
随着人们对健康问题的日益关注以及基于用户生成内容（UGC）的在线社区的出现，越来越多的人参与在线健康社区（OHC）以交流意见和健康信息。本文旨在探讨男性和女性用户在 OHC 中的行为是否存在差异以及存在哪些差异。本研究使用来自中国领先的糖尿病社区（Tianmijiayuan）的数据，结合三种不同的技术：主题建模分析、情感分析和友谊网络分析，研究慢性在线健康社区中的性别差异。结果表明：（1）男性用户的发帖内容通常更专业，包含更多的医学术语。相比之下，女性用户更倾向于在健康社区中寻求情感支持。（2）女性用户表达的负面情绪比男性用户多，尤其是焦虑和悲伤。（3）此外，男性用户在友谊网络中比女性用户更居于中心地位且更具影响力。通过这些分析，我们揭示了在线健康社区中不同性别用户的行为特征和需求。深入了解 OHC 中的性别差异可以为更好地满足男性和女性患者的信息需求、情感需求和关系需求提供指导。
