Elran-Barak Roni
School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Internet Interv. 2021 Jul 27;26:100438. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2021.100438. eCollection 2021 Dec.
Moderated online health communities (OHCs) are digital platforms that provide a means for patients with similar medical conditions to communicate with each other under the supervision of healthcare professionals.
To examine the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on content and type of posts published in two moderated OHCs - eating disorders and depression/anxiety - by comparing categorizations of posts written before vs. after the lockdown, and about vs. not about the pandemic.
Posts were retrieved from , the first Israeli medical social network (January-June 2017, March-May 2020). A total of 1475 posts were analyzed. Of them, 802 posts were written before and 680 were written during the first lockdown. Posts were divided into two main categories: informational and emotional, and into fourteen subcategories.
Before the pandemic, the eating disorders OHC was characterized as primarily emotional (emotional: 66.7%, informational: 45.4%) and the depression/anxiety OHC as primarily informational (emotional: 49.8%, informational: 65.8%) (χ = 31.6, p < 0.001). During the lockdown, there was a transition in the eating disorders community, from primarily emotional to primarily informational communication (emotional: 46.1%, informational: 71.7%) (χ = 30.3, p < 0.001). In both OHCs, only about one in six posts written during the lockdown was related to the pandemic. There were only minimal differences in subcategorization of posts written before vs. after the outbreak (e.g., searching for medical information was more common during the pandemic: χ = 40.9, p < 0.001), as well as about vs. not about the pandemic (e.g., sharing negative emotions was more common when writing about the pandemic: χ = 4.1, p = 0.43).
During the first lockdown, people with eating disorders have increased their use of OHCs as sources of informational (as opposed to emotional) support, but the overall impact of the pandemic on the content of posts written in the examined OHCs was minimal, suggesting that OHCs have not changed their function as a valuable means of providing emotional and informational support for people with mental difficulties.
适度管理的在线健康社区（OHCs）是数字平台，为患有相似病症的患者提供了在医疗专业人员监督下相互交流的途径。
通过比较封锁前与封锁后发布的帖子以及关于与不关于疫情的帖子分类，研究新冠疫情爆发对两个适度管理的在线健康社区（饮食失调和抑郁/焦虑）中发布的帖子内容和类型的影响。
从以色列第一个医疗社交网络（2017年1月至6月，2020年3月至5月）检索帖子。共分析了1475个帖子。其中，802个帖子是在第一次封锁前撰写的，680个是在封锁期间撰写的。帖子分为两个主要类别：信息类和情感类，并进一步细分为14个子类别。
在疫情之前，饮食失调在线健康社区的特点主要是情感类（情感类：66.7%，信息类：45.4%），而抑郁/焦虑在线健康社区主要是信息类（情感类：49.8%，信息类：65.8%）（χ² = 31.6，p < 0.001）。在封锁期间，饮食失调社区发生了转变，从主要的情感交流转变为主要的信息交流（情感类：46.1%，信息类：71.7%）（χ² = 30.3，p < 0.001）。在两个在线健康社区中，封锁期间撰写的帖子中只有约六分之一与疫情相关。疫情爆发前与爆发后撰写的帖子在子分类方面只有极小的差异（例如，在疫情期间搜索医疗信息更为常见：χ² = 40.9，p < 0.001），以及关于与不关于疫情的帖子之间（例如，在撰写关于疫情的帖子时分享负面情绪更为常见：χ² = 4.1，p = 0.43）。
在第一次封锁期间，饮食失调患者增加了将在线健康社区作为信息支持（而非情感支持）来源的使用，但疫情对所研究的在线健康社区中撰写的帖子内容的总体影响很小，这表明在线健康社区作为为有心理困难的人提供情感和信息支持的宝贵手段的功能并未改变。
