Knowledge construction in health support group online discussions : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Management Information Systems, School of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
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Date
2012
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Massey University
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Abstract
The ongoing transition to the patient-centred healthcare paradigm suggests that patients
adopt an active role in managing their health conditions. As the result, the Internet is
becoming an important source of health-related information. Internet-based health
support groups allow patients to access diverse information relevant to their particular
situation by participating in online discussions. The quality of such information may
have effects on the patients’ outcomes.
According to social constructivism, knowledge in online discussions is constructed in
interactions between the individuals involved, as recommendations made over the
discussion are clarified and scrutinized. Therefore, knowledge construction is likely to
affect the quality of health-related information generated in health support group online
discussions.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of knowledge
construction in health support group online discussions on perceived information
quality, information quality from the perspective of information consumers, and on
information integrity, information validity from the point of view of the current state of
scientific knowledge. It was hypothesized that knowledge construction results in better
perceived information quality and in higher information integrity.
A health support group online discussion site devoted to weight management was used
as a source of data. Quantitative content analysis was used, with a discussion thread as
a unit of analysis.
Knowledge construction was operationalized as a two-dimensional construct with the
dimensions of explicitation (lower level knowledge construction activities) and
evaluation (higher level knowledge construction activities). The coding scheme was
based on the prior studies of knowledge construction in the field of e-Learning.
Perceived information quality was operationalized by adapting an existing measure
from survey-based research. Information integrity was operationalized by using a
simplified Delphi technique—health-related recommendations were extracted from the
discussion content by coders and were assessed by domain experts.
Explicitation was found to affect perceived information quality with a medium effect
size. Evaluation did not affect perceived information quality, and information integrity
was not affected by any of the dimensions of knowledge construction.
Thus, low level knowledge construction contributed to perceived information quality,
resulting in health-related information that is more relevant and useful from the
perspective of its consumers. Nonetheless, knowledge construction activities were not
found to result in higher prevalence of scientifically sound recommendations.
Based on the findings, the study suggested that moderators of health support group
online discussions should promote explicitation by encouraging clarifications and
refinements of health-related recommendations. Moreover, participation of qualified
health practitioners is desirable to promote health-related behaviours based on
evidence-based knowledge and to expose recommendations that have uncertain or even
dangerous effects.
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Keywords
Health information, Online support group, Health support group