Internet Support Groups: Isolating and Improving Pathways Towards Mental Health

互联网支持团体：隔离和改善通向心理健康的途径

• 批准号: 8873740
• 负责人: ROBERT E. KRAUT
• 金额: $ 23.11万
• 依托单位: CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-04-01 至 2017-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8873740
• 关键词: Adult; Affect; American; American Cancer Society; Anxiety; Behavior; Cancer Survivor; Caregivers; Cations; Characteristics; Chronic; Communication; Communities; Data; Data Analyses; Data Set; Depressed mood; Development; Effectiveness; Emotional; Empirical Research; Expressed Emotion; Funding; Goals; Health; Health Services Research; Individual; Internet; Intervention; Language; Lead; Left; Length; Machine Learning; Measures; Medical; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Methods; Modeling; Moods; National Institute of Mental Health; Outcome; Participant; Partner in relationship; Pathway interactions; Patients; Personal Satisfaction; Population; Primary Care Physician; Process; Psychology; Psychosocial Stress; Randomized; Randomized Clinical Trials; Reporting; Research; Resources; Series; Site; Social Interaction; Social support; Stress; Support Groups; Techniques; Technology; Testing; Time; Work; anxious; base; communication behavior; computer science; cost; experience; group intervention; health care service utilization; health related quality of life; improved; insight; language processing; member; peer; psychological distress; psychosocial; public health relevance; randomized trial; research study; satisfaction; showing emotion; social; success; therapy design

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): People facing serious health threats increasingly use the Internet to obtain information and support. Internet support groups (ISGs), online communities where people come together to exchange information and/or support, are an important resource for patients grappling with serious medical conditions. Participation in health-related ISGs has been associated with significant reductions in participant-reported depression, anxiety and other indicators of psychological distress. These groups offer great potential for interventions that are highly scalable and yet easily tailored to individual needs. Unfortunately many ISG members leave too soon to benefit. In addition, there is limited scientific understanding of the active ingredients underlying the benefits that ISGs confer among their members. The proposed research uses state-of-the art machine learning and automated language analysis techniques to assess the types of interactions in online health support groups that lead to improved psychosocial well-being and health-related quality of life and how these interactions develop. It also uses these technologies and insight from our empirical research to build, deploy, and evaluate interventions that improve the interactions in health-related Internet support groups. Our work has three major aims. In Aims 1 and 2, we will analyze data from two complementary Internet support groups to identify (a) the communication processes that sustain participant engagement in the group and (b) the communication processes through which peer-to-peer interactions improve participants' psychosocial outcomes. These datasets come from an ongoing naturalistic study of 4,400 cancer survivors and caregivers in ISGs hosted by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and from a soon-to-be-completed NIMH-funded randomized trial (MH093501) assessing the effectiveness of an ISG for depressed and anxious patients referred to the group by their primary care physicians. Both datasets include participant-level data on depression, anxiety, stress and other psychosocial outcomes and detailed server logs containing information on page views, time on site, and the content of communications between participants. In Aim 3, we will develop and pilot test interventions to encourage the communication processes identified as effective in Aims 1 and 2. We will test whether mood, satisfaction with interactions and engagement in the group increase following interventions that (a) increase participants' receipt of individualized support from others; (b) provide participants with opportunities to offer support to others; (c) facilitate participants' expression of emotions; and (d) help participants form relationships with similar peers. In a series of randomized experiments, we will examine how these interventions affect participants' communication behaviors as well as short-term engagement and satisfaction with their online interactions. Results from this project will facilitate the development of an R01 application for a randomized clinical trial testing the impact of personalized ISG interventions on the length of time participants continue to participate in ISGs and participants' depression, anxiety and other psychosocial outcomes as well as healthcare utilization.

 描述(申请人提供)：面临严重健康威胁的人越来越多地使用互联网获取信息和支持。互联网支持小组(ISGs)是人们聚集在一起交换信息和/或支持的在线社区，是与严重疾病作斗争的患者的重要资源。参与与健康相关的ISGs与参与者报告的抑郁、焦虑和其他心理痛苦指标的显著减少有关。这些群体为高度可扩展的干预措施提供了巨大的潜力，但很容易根据个人需求进行定制。不幸的是，许多ISG成员离开得太早，无法受益。此外，对ISGs赋予其成员的利益背后的有效成分的科学理解有限。这项拟议的研究使用最先进的机器学习和自动语言分析技术来评估在线健康支持小组中导致心理社会福祉和与健康相关的生活质量改善的互动类型，以及这些互动是如何发展的。它还使用这些技术和从我们的实证研究中获得的见解来建立、部署和评估改善与健康相关的互联网支持小组互动的干预措施。我们的工作有三个主要目标。在目标1和目标2中，我们将分析来自两个互补的互联网支持小组的数据，以确定(A)维持参与者在小组中参与的沟通过程，以及(B)通过对等互动改善参与者的心理社会结果的沟通过程。这些数据集来自一项正在进行的自然主义研究，该研究对美国癌症协会(ACS)主办的ISG中的4400名癌症幸存者和照顾者进行了研究，并来自一项即将完成的NIMH资助的随机试验(MH093501)，该试验评估了由他们的初级保健医生转介给该小组的抑郁和焦虑患者的ISG的有效性。这两个数据集都包括参与者级别的有关抑郁、焦虑、压力和其他心理社会结果的数据，以及详细的服务器日志，其中包含有关页面浏览量、在现场的时间和参与者之间交流内容的信息。在目标3中，我们将开发和试点测试干预措施，以鼓励在目标1和目标2中被确定为有效的沟通过程。我们将测试以下干预措施是否会增加情绪、对互动的满意度和对小组的投入：(A)增加参与者从他人那里获得个性化支持的机会；(B)为参与者提供向他人提供支持的机会；(C)促进参与者的情绪表达； 以及(D)帮助参与者与相似的同龄人形成关系。在一系列随机实验中，我们将考察这些干预措施如何影响参与者的沟通行为，以及他们对在线互动的短期参与度和满意度。该项目的结果将有助于开发随机临床试验的R01应用程序，测试个性化ISG干预对参与者继续参与ISG的时间长度以及参与者的抑郁、焦虑和其他心理社会结果以及医疗保健利用的影响。