BACKGROUND
Online health communities (OHCs) provide ovarian cancer (OvCa) patients, survivors, and their caregivers assistance beyond their traditional support channels. OvCa OHC promotes connection and exchange information among users who had similar experiences. This exchange of information often leads to resource sharing amongst users, as web links within online communities.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to determine if any of OvCa OHC users’ resource sharing behaviors are associated with the relevance of these resources. Three resource sharing behaviors were considered: types of resource shared, the purpose of sharing the resource and OHC users’ reactions to resource sharing
METHODS
Using a retrospective design, data were extracted from the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition (NOCC) discussion forum. Resource relevance was categorized to three levels (relevant, partially relevant and not relevant). Resource sharing behaviors were identified through manual content analysis. The chi-square test was used to evaluate associations between resource relevance and resource sharing behaviors
RESULTS
Among the resources shared, 49.43% were identified as relevant, 29.54% were partially relevant and 22.16% were not relevant. From the investigated resource sharing behavior, the study established a significant association between types of resource shared (X2=33.2771, p<0.05) and purpose of resource sharing (X2 =22.9210, p<0.05) with resource relevance (based on chi-square test of independence). Types of resource shared revealed that health consumer materials including health news and health organizations had significantly more relevant resources. Patient educational materials and patient generated resources were more significantly related to partially relevant and irrelevant resources respectively. Health professional materials including academic literature were shared a few times but have significantly more relevant resources. Purpose of sharing, including additional readings and pointing to resources, had significantly more relevant resources, while subjects for discussion and to stay connected did not have any relevant resources shared.
CONCLUSIONS
The associations found between the resource sharing behaviors and relevance of these resources can help in collect possible relevant resources from these forums along with their information needs on a large scale through automation. The study also reveals, when an intervention is required for handling the needs of OvCa OHC users