NDLI: Information interaction and social support: exploring help-seeking in online communities during public health emergencies

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Yang, Yanni Zhang, Yue Xiang, Anling
Abstract	Background During public health emergencies, online community users can obtain social support and assistance through information interaction in the online community. This study takes the COVID-19 pandemic as the context and aims to analyze the influence of user information interaction in online communities on the acquisition of social support during this public health emergency. Methods Data collected from help-seeking posts in the “COVID-19 Patients Help-Seeking Dialog” subforum on China’s Sina Weibo were used as the research sample. The influence of the frequency of interaction and responsiveness on help seekers’ receipt of online social support was analyzed, and the moderating effect of help seekers’ identity type and intensity of online community use was explored. Results The results reveal that the frequency of interaction positively impacts informational support (β = 0.367, p < 0.001) and negatively impacts emotional support (β=-0.240, p < 0.001), and the responsiveness of other users toward help-seeking posts positively impacts emotional support (β = 0.145, p < 0.01). Moreover, help seeker’s identity type and intensity of online community use significantly moderate the relationship between the frequency of interaction and the emotional support obtained by the help seeker. Conclusions The study highlights the impact of user information interaction on obtaining help-seeking information from online communities for social support. The initiative would facilitate the resolution of issues related to users’ information help-seeking during public health emergencies.
Related Links	https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12889-023-16151-3.pdf
Ending Page	12
Page Count	12
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14712458
DOI	10.1186/s12889-023-16151-3
Journal	BMC Public Health
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	23
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2023-06-27
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Public Health Medicine Epidemiology Biostatistics Vaccine Environmental Health Public health emergency COVID-19 pandemic Online community Online help-seeking Information interaction Online social support Medicine/Public Health
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Journal Impact Factor	3.5/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	3.9/2023

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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