Exploring the Effect of Social Support and Empathy on User Engagement in Online Mental Health Communities.

Yixin Chen,Yang Xu

doi:10.3390/ijerph18136855

Abstract

It is known that social support and empathy are beneficial for mental health. As a result of the widespread development of social media, online social support and empathy could also influence user behaviors during the development of online communities. However, few studies have examined these effects from the perspective of online mental health communities. These communities appear to be a crucial source for mental health related support, but the spread of online empathy in these communities is not well-understood. This study focused on 22 mental health related subreddits, and matched and compared users (1) who received social support with those who did not receive social support, and users (2) who received more empathic social support with those who received less empathic social support. The results showed that social support and empathy are “contagious”. That is, users who received social support at their first post would be more likely to post again and provide support for others; in addition, users who received more empathic support would subsequently express a higher level of empathy to others in the future. Our findings indicate the potential chain reaction of social support and empathy in online mental health communities. Our study also provides insights into how online mental health communities might better assist people to deliver social support that can help others to deal with mental problems.

Highlights

It is known that social support can positively affect psychological well-being [1] and alleviate mental health problems, e.g., depression [2,3,4], stress [5], and mental disorder [6].Research has explored the mechanism in which social support works [7,8] and demonstrated the impact of social support on different populations, such as college students [9], elderly people [10], and low-income populations [11]
For the “comment group” that received at least one comment on the first post and “no comment group” that did not receive any comment on the first post, we first compared their probabilities of returning to the online mental health communities (OMHCs) to post or comment
As prior research showed that posters in OMHCs act as support seekers and commenters in OMHCs act as support providers [17,18], our results suggest that users who received social support at the first post in OMHCs would be more likely to continue to disclose themselves and seek help, and offer others support in the future

Summary

Introduction

It is known that social support can positively affect psychological well-being [1] and alleviate mental health problems, e.g., depression [2,3,4], stress [5], and mental disorder [6].Research has explored the mechanism in which social support works [7,8] and demonstrated the impact of social support on different populations, such as college students [9], elderly people [10], and low-income populations [11]. Considering the basic structure of OMHCs, research views the posts on mental health communities as seeking support and the comments as providing support [17,18]. Users play the role of recipients and providers of social support in online communities. Their willingness to provide social support is essential for the development and success of online communities [19,20]. In addition to the impact of social support on mental health, studies explored its relationship with user engagement and community development. Studies on some specific online communities such as weight-loss communities showed that social support could facilitate users’ following engagement, such as increasing return probability [22,23]

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