Virtual Interaction And Social Support Of HPV Positive Patients In Online Community

As the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the world,more than 80% of women and 90% of men are likely to have been infected with HPV in their lifetime,and most HPV-positive patients lack realistic social support due to the specificity of the transmission route and symptoms of HPV infection,public perception gaps and the socially stigmatization metaphor of ’sex-related’ diseases.Most HPV positive patients lack realistic social support.The patient group has thus become the main forum for information interaction,emotional exchange and mutual support across time and space,providing online social support for disease improvement and recovery.The aim of this study is to examine the QQ patient groups of HPV-positive patients through a theoretical framework of social support,using a combination of virtual ethnography and in-depth interviews to discuss the reasons why patients turn to online communities for social support,the characteristics of their interactions,the kind of social support they exchange with each other,and the risks of online communities in addition to their social support function.Through online non-participant observation of two QQ patient groups and in-depth interviews with patients within the groups,the study found that in terms of motivation for need,anxiety about access to information due to lack of knowledge about disease treatment,external stigma and patient self-stigma,the absence of realistic homogeneous groups and the lack of strong relational social support led patients to choose to enter online patient groups to interact virtually with other patients in order to seek social support.In terms of interaction characteristics,patients’ virtual interactions in online communities are characterized by high self-expression,symbolic compartmentalization,communication synchronization and fragmentation of topics.In terms of the horizontal dimension of support acquisition and provision,HPV-positive patients mainly received information support,emotional support and buddy support in the patient community,with instrumental support less frequently present.In terms of information support,knowledge sharing within the group varies according to the stage of treatment;in terms of emotional support,patients respond and resonate emotionally based on social exchange,building a sense of belonging and forming a ’virtual community’.In terms of companionship support,patients evoke daily conversations through small talk,linking the daily lives of group members and alleviating their feelings of isolation.There is less instrumental support in the patient group,and it is characterized by a non-material-spiritual one-way polarization.In the vertical dimension of support succession,it is mainly reflected in the mutual support relay formed by the transformation of the identities of the giver and the recipient in reciprocity,and in the scenario where the mutual support relationship continues from virtual space to real life.On the one hand,patients realize the relay of mutual support across time and space based on subtle altruism,with the identities of giver and recipient shifting in reciprocity.On the other hand,the social support in the virtual community is extended to real life through private meetings,and the provision and exchange of social support extends the scenario.In addition,the study identified risks beyond the meaning of social support in online communities,including information overload at the content level and the risk of misinformation from non-professional information within the group;at the psychological level,the negative emotional infection caused by the narratives of the group members’ illnesses;at the interaction level,disagreements,misunderstandings and excessive concern among the group members can cause psychological stress to the patients;and at the ethical level,there can be the risk of deception and sexual harassment.