Abstract
Social media has been a powerful source of social support for health consumers. In the healthcare sector, social media has thrived, building on various dynamic platforms supporting the connection between social relationships, health, and wellbeing. While prior research has shown that social support exerts a positive impact on health outcomes, there is scant literature examining the implications of social support for patient satisfaction, which suggests that there is a profound gap in the extant literature. The objective of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model for understanding the relationship between different dimensions of social support and patient empowerment. The study further investigates the debated relationship between patient empowerment and patient satisfaction. The measurement model indicated an acceptable fit (χ2 = 260.226; df, 107, χ2/df = 2.432, RMSEA = 0.07, GFI = 0.90, IFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, and CFI = 0.95). Findings indicate that emotional support (p < 0.001), information support (p < 0.05), and network support (p < 0.001) positively influence the notion of patient empowerment. In turn, patient empowerment positively influences patient satisfaction (p < 0.001). The proposed framework contributes to the health communication literature by introducing a novel framework for patient satisfaction in the social media context, which provides important inputs for healthcare service providers in developing patient empowerment strategies.
Highlights
The application and use of social media in healthcare has grown rapidly
structural equation modelling (SEM) is a collection of statistical techniques that allow researchers to examine hypothesised relationships between one or more independent variables (IVs), either continuous or discrete, and one or more dependent variables (DVs) [69]
The results strongly suggest that emotional support, information support and network support significantly and positively influence the notion of patient empowerment
Summary
The application and use of social media in healthcare has grown rapidly. Healthcare providers are employing social media platforms to provide social support in order to empower patients while improving health outcomes [1,2]. Since its emergence in the early 2000s, social media is a powerful source of social support for patients. Social media facilitates the connection between social relationships, wellbeing and health [3,4]. Virtual communities utilise social media to access information about their medical condition and, more importantly, to share with others the daily emotional aspects of one’s life [5]. Social media is being utilised by healthcare providers to harness social support, improving health outcomes by meeting basic human needs for companionship, intimacy, a sense of belonging, and reassurance of one’s worth as a person [6]. Many healthcare organisations, patients and community support groups provide numerous social support strategies for patients [7,8]
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